Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
(d) The MDBs and other IAA sponsors have done a very poor job in technology
transfer to DC personnel. The best/cheapest way to achieve effective TT (technology
transfer) is to utilize the actual project for this purpose. But the way the MDBs et
al. structure the budget, while the overall project team includes both expat experts
and DC participants as assistants, the project budget has no funds for enabling the
expat experts to use the project for TT purposes
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. So the expats use the DC-ers to
do tasks without explanation of the “why” of the tasks. The MDBs et al assume the
TT will “rub off” on the DC participates in the project implementation process, but
this doesn't happen — It's not that easy. The need is to increase the project budget
for the expats by about 10 percent to enable the expat experts to have the time to
utilize the project for training purposes.
(e) The MDBs should recognize that Environmental Technology has been developed
primarily in the ICs, but in the DCs, because of the non-money making nature of
most environmental/sanitary infrastructures, the DC governments/universities are
generally not knowledgeable on appropriate sanitary engineering design technology.
Often the practitioners and university professors have only academic backgrounds
in affluent IC practices and are not at all capable of doing the judgment thinking
needed for making the IC to DC changes. This applies also to most MDB/IAA
staff and most DC staff because they have not had the needed apprenticeship
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.
The result is the poor design noted in Items (b)(c) above. How to correct this very
basic problem? Several approaches are feasible:
(e.1) Incorporate technology transfer into the investment project program as noted
in Item (d) above.
(e.2) Prepare textbooks or manuals on appropriate DC design criteria (and
matching environmental standards), which can guide DC/IAA designers to produce
a project which works, such as done by H. Ludwig et al. for the Municipal
Sewerage Sector
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, which to the author's knowledge, is the only environmental
engineering design textbook yet produced which is actually appropriate for
DC application. As noted in its Preface, this Sewerage textbook is “just for
starters,” to illustrate this approach. Similar textbooks are needed for all sectors
(municipal water supply, highways, ports, etc.) so that projects in all sectors will
be economically-cum-environmentally sound.
(e.3) Established graduate training programs on IC versus DC design practices for
all types of investment, to ensure appropriate design practices (and matching envi-
ronmental standards) for all types of environmentally-sensitive projects, leading to
university graduate degrees in Economic-cum-Environmental (E-c-E) Development
in the DCs, to be attended by both DC and IAA personnel
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. This approach is
the most basic — to give attention to the need for E1-cum-E2 project design for
all sector projects as part of the graduate education program. The MDBs should
take the lead to establish at least one such university program, somewhere in a
qualified university. No existing graduate university now does this, not even the
Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok nor the UN university program in Japan.
(e.4) Promote establishment of an Environmental Engineering Journal, i.e., a pro-
fessional magazine in which each issue will feature projects that discuss specific
examples or case studies of illustrative DC projects which explain how IC practices
were modified to suit DC conditions.
