BANGLADESH: Mass marketing treadle pumps: an appropriate technology pathway to transformation
“The history of the case begins in the early 1980s and a programme led by an NGO, International Development Enterprises, to facilitate smallholder access to irrigation in Bangladesh. The NGO took proven manual pump technology and sought to facilitate the development of markets for manufacturing, retail, installation and maintenance of the pumps that would persist independently of project support. “At the household level, significant production and income benefits were recorded from the relatively small investment required to purchase a pump, providing autonomy to small farmers on irrigation timing and amount, without the additional cost of fuel. The treadle pump is also said to have contributed to the restructuring and development of water markets in Bangladesh, challenging the established monopolies of large landholders in water access… “The total donor investment of US$10 million is estimated to have leveraged an investment of US$40 million from smallholders and generated a net return of US$150 million a year. The NGO involved was somewhat unusual in that it was pioneering the delivery of products and services to the poor via a market mechanism. Having demonstrated the value of this inclusive innovation, local informal sector
engineers copied the pumps, reverse engineering the design to produce low-cost versions, which quickly became popular. This led to the establishment of an integrated system of suppliers and repairers in rural areas. The public sector contributed by agreeing to remove subsidies from other small-scale pumps in the market that were discouraging the private sector from producing and supplying pumps. “While this case is often presented as a technology narrative (over a million pumps were sold), the real transformation process was the way in which poor households were enabled to participate in water markets. Technology certainly helped, but there was a degree of serendipity in that it was introduced at a time of wider agrarian change in Bangladesh.”
Source: Hall, A. and Dijkman, J. 2019. Public Agricultural Research in an Era of Transformation: The Challenge of Agri-Food System Innovation . Rome and Canberra: CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) Secretariat and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO); pp.29, 32
including greenhouse gas emissions. But the truth is that technological change can only happen if it’s based on a much broader set of adaptations or innovations, which are largely still missing. These adaptations range from creating different forms of partnerships and infrastructure to putting a value
from 2017 about “the situation of various emerging economies, which have a global pool of advanced technology that they could be accessing to leapfrog over other countries and secure economic growth – but for some reason they’re not. The reason is that there’s a series of missing capabilities and capacities within their systems. Governments try to get businesses to invest in innovation, but very often as soon as they step away, the pilots fall apart because the broader institutional environment to support innovation is missing. Simply put: If countries don’t have the capability to manage technological change and set the framework conditions, their efforts will be wasted.” That view is echoed by Ijeoma Emenanjo, Country Manager for West and Central Africa, Public Sector
The truth is that technological change can only happen if it’s based on a much broader set of adaptations or innovations, which are largely still missing.
on emissions in economic, policy and regulatory terms. In fact, the
sustainability agenda has forced us to think not just about innovation as a good thing per se, but as something that needs to be supported and purposefully directed.” The question of support and direction explains why some countries are able to harness innovation while others fail, despite throwing considerable resources into the mix. Hall points to The Innovation Paradox , a World Bank book
Andy Hall, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Senior Research Scientist
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