Short note: Appropriate technology

Appropriate technology (AT) is technology that suits the economic, social, cultural and environmental conditions of the place where it is used. It is usually small-scale, low-cost, labour-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and can be operated, repaired and managed by local people using local materials and skills. The idea was popularised by economist E. F. Schumacher in Small Is Beautiful (1973).

Characteristics:

• Low capital cost and affordable to local people
• Uses local resources, materials and skills
• Labour-intensive; creates local employment
• Simple to operate and maintain locally
• Small-scale and decentralised
• Environmentally sound and uses renewable energy
• Culturally acceptable and meets real local needs

Examples in Nepal:

• Improved water mill (ghatta) and micro-hydro plants
• Biogas plants and improved cooking stoves (ICS)
• Solar home systems and solar dryers
• Rainwater harvesting and gravity-flow drinking water schemes
• Suspension trail bridges replacing tuin (cable) river crossings
• Drip irrigation and treadle pumps

Importance: It reduces poverty, creates jobs, reduces dependence on imports, protects the environment and makes rural communities self-reliant. A technology is "appropriate" only relative to a place: a nuclear plant is appropriate in a rich industrial country, but a micro-hydro plant is appropriate for a remote Nepali village.