Research
Diffusion of technology as a tool in development interventions
Access to new technology can make a change to people's livelihoods, but the introduction of new technology is far from an easy task and the results from these introductions are also difficult to assess. My impression is that introduction of technogies as part of development interventions often are carried out with more focus on technical aspects than the more softs parts of what technolgies consist of and require. The technical artefact is fine and dandy to put wherever, but to make it to become beneficial to the users knowledge and support in various ways are needed.
I would like to argue that diffusion of technologies within the development context can be divided between the introduction of the technology and the integration of the technology in peoples livelihoods. It is the latter that is the goal in the ineterventions, while it is the first that can be implemented through a project.
Solar Energy
More on solar in the documents section
Small scale domestic biogas technology
Look at the thesis 2000 on the documents page
On the Documents side you will also find my BSc thesis concerning a case study in Orissa India where one activity carried out was to construct and to implement a biogas programme. As the area where this programme was carried out did not have running water and the people were generally very poor and thus also did not have many cattle there was obviously a number of challenges to tackle. The implementing organisation of the biogas component was Gram Vikas (www.gramvikas.org) while the organisation working in the villages that are part of the case study was Wida (Integrated Rural Development of Weaker Sections in India)