Engineering for development in the Third World

With over 90% of R&D around the world addressing the `problems´ of industrialised countries, there is tremendous scope for improved technologies to benefit disadvantaged people in the South. Identifying the need and developing such improvements requires a thorough understanding of the context for their use and the active involvement of the users. This is a challenge and one to which engineers in industrialised countries can respond given the right channels of communication with their colleagues in the `developing´ countries. It does require an attitude that acknowledges that the way technology is used depends on the context, and that solutions that make sense in the `North´ may well not be appropriate in the sometimes very different conditions in the `South´