SPATF - helping people to help themselves
In ACP countries, as elsewhere, individuals and groups often want to improve their lives but lack the technology and skill to do so. The South Pacific Appropriate Technology Foundation (SPATF) is a community based, non-profit development organization, established in 1977, as a special project of the Papua New Guinea former Office of Village Development, and was incorporated as a company limited under guarantee. SPATF's aim is to explore and promote technological alternatives and to assist people to select and use the best technical solution to meet their basic development needs. The majority of the rural population in Papua New Guinea live at subsistence level. The lack of education, skills and capital resources mean that they must use simple and inexpensive technologies to generate goods and services to meet their needs, because high level capital intensive technologies are beyond their reach. SPATF promotes technology which is low-cost, locally available, and simple to maintain. It must be environmentally and socially compatible, affordable, manageable, and controllable by poor people, and use tools and techniques which take advantage of local resources of knowledge, skills and materials to satisfy people's basic needs. To do this, SPATF works through its operational divisions, known as the Community Enterprise Support Unit (CESU). Each CESU promotes the technology and services appropriate for creating employment' because in Papua New Guinea only 10% of each year's school leavers find jobs. There is a CESU in Port Moresby known as Small Industries Centre, and in Lae, called Village Equipment Suppliers. The islands will soon have their own at Mount Hagen and in Rabal. These CESUs provide information about training, financial. management, marketing services, research and development, project support, tools, equipment, machines and technical and engineering services. The SPATF/CESU information services include the provision of information and guidance on technology choices, including sources of supply, to individuals and groups organizations. These are available through the question and answer service, reports, brochures, newsletters, publications and other printed and electronic media. The Liklik Buk Information Centre, a joint project of SPATF, the University of Technology and the Melanesian Council of Churches, is responsible for providing information on appropriate technologies. The Centre also acts as publisher and wholesaler of all SPATF publications and other rural development publications. The most popular of these is a rural development handbook called Liklik Buk, which describes many successful self-help rural developments. SPATF, PO Box 6937, Boroko, PAPUA, NEW GUINEA
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| Format: | News Item biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
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Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
1991
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/45463 http://collections.infocollections.org/ukedu/en/d/Jcta31e/ |
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