[Stoves] Useful look at a few of main reasons big development organization relying on experts & mega-bucks tend to under perform (biomass stove discussion list)

[cec1863 at gmail.com]

Dear all,

My nearly 5 decades of big top-down 'development' projects in Africa, Brazil, and Asia have convinced me that "small is better" (more cost effective) because it allows (leaves enough free space to challenge people and local socio-economic institutions to use their own wits, indigenous knowledge and little or no outside assistance to fix locally defined problems. What Roger Samson is ‎talking about is the blessedness of discovering those development strategies which get the biggest lasting positive change for the smallest cost, disruption and/or eallocation of resources.
‎
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
  Original Message  
From: Laurie Childers <childers at peak.org>
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2016 6:24 PM
To: Roger Samson; Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Reply To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner cookstoves

Great letter, Roger Samson. Thanks.

Laurie Childers

> On Dec 12, 2016, at 1:48 PM, Roger Samson <rogerenroute at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> 
> So 30% malaria thats tragic. That's the reality of being a child born in the bottom economic rank of a bottom country. If its that bad you might want a smokey stove in the house to drive out mosquitoes and save lives.
> 
> If you really want to get angry about any agency exploiting funds its WHO, they just keep messing up whether its Ebola in West Africa (the Cubans save the day on that one) or more recently Cholera in Congo or in malaria control globally. On the malaria front I have been informally working on whole plant medicines in West Africa as so many people are resistant to anti-malaria drugs in Gambia. WHO only recommends western medicines. Mostly they recommend ACT-Arteminisin combination therapy which is having major resistance issues. Arteminsin is derived from Artemesia which is bought by the pharmaceutical companies from farmers for a pittance. The companies extract the arteminsin and sell it back to African's for real money and at least until recently WHO was getting a perecentage of ACT sales from the pharmaceutical industry. Now it turns out that the Artemesia plant has about 60 chemicals that may improve success in acheiving a malaria control (some stimulate the immune system to help the recovery). Now it turns out it works better than the ACT's that WHO recommends. Check it out here:
> https://malariaworld.org/blog/breaking-news-clinical-trials-artemisia-plants
> 
> You can just pound or grind up the whole Artemesia plant you can get better control for next to nothing and limited potential for resistance as so many chemcials are involved. You can also use it with lemongrass tea. For tough cases of resistance I use vodka extracts of papaya leaves to improve eradication. Anyone working overseas on stoves should consider taking artemesia tea as a prophylactic where malaria is present. 
> 
> In any event what I know is that general rule is that the bigger the organization, the less resource efficient they are with funds and the less they care about the poor. This is true with UN agencies and NGO's.
> It was working in South Sudan that I realized how fully broken the whole international development field is with the big money being controlled and wasted by the big agencies. It was the most stressful experience ever, not the poverty but seeing the agencies eat the money that was destined for the South Sudanese ex-combattants desperate to recover from the 30 year war with the north. 
> 
> Its like the old song of Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows. 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lin-a2lTelg
> The poor stay poor ...and the rich get rich
> 
> A really good read for everyone:
> Lords of Poverty: Power, Prestige and Corruption in International Development
> https://www.amazon.ca/Lords-Poverty-Prestige-Corruption-International/dp/0871134691
> 
> ... and the poor stay poor...that's how it goes......everybody knows
> You will find the Lords of Poverty hanging out at the Imperial Hotels of the world .... eating the money destined for the poor. 
> 
> regards
> Roger
> 
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------
> On Mon, 12/12/16, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
> 
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner cookstoves
> To: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Received: Monday, December 12, 2016, 12:43 PM
> 
> Dear Friends
> 
> Andrew says
>> That's right it looks like about 30%
> of the 10 thousand children in the study suffered from
> malaria. 
> 
> And Nikhil asks
> if you are interested in helping the public, who about
> developing and giving out malaria vaccines? Or treated nets
> which are very effective.
> 
> There was a CBC article saying last week that
> the nets cost about $3 through one NGO and $40 through
> another. Donate carefully.
> 
> Crispin
> 
> 
> 
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