Ordinary People Problems In Africa

By: Mawuna Remarque KOUTONIN Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 at 12:52 am.

Africa

ns have sent their kids to school to gain knowledge that would help solve their problems, but the kids never fulfilled that promise.

They betrayed the hope, and preferred to go to work for the banks and international organizations, leaving their people crushed by a fast changing world they lack the knowledge and skills to deal with.

Sending remittance wont save Africa. Africa need more your brain than your money. In this post, Im making a call to African engineers and innovators to use their skills and talents to create or re-purpose technology that could solve problems the other 99% of African populations face on daily basis. There is more to technology than creating a new cool iPhone app or a highly responsive html5 website with Twitter Bootstrap. In fact, there is no better satisfaction in life than creating a technology that change people life for better, and seeing their happy faces using that technology. Ive made a list of the top problems that ordinary Africans faces that we could use technology to solve in a more efficient and affordable ways, using local knowledge and materials. Unfortunately if you are reading this post, you probably dont belong to the group of the ordinary Africans Im featuring in this article. Now, here is the list of the Top 16 problems faced by ordinary Africans:

1. Bed for babies

In Africa, babies sleep with their mom at night, but during day time moms lack a convenient place to make their baby to rest or sleep, because daytime life is spend outside of the house. Babies either sleep on the floor, inside package paper box, an arranged place on a sofa, or the women have to carry them on their back while going through their daily activity. This is also a huge market, but success will require a deep study of local people habits, and avoidance of conventional thinking like bringing baby bed like in Europe to African villages or towns

2. Women Carrying babies All day long

For tourists visiting Africa, seeing African women carrying their baby on their back all day long is a satisfying curiosity, and some clever minds even think its a cultural patrimony to preserve. Now, let ask the women carrying a 5 to 12 kilos babies on their back all day long if that is something rejoicing. Besides, designing beds where they could keep the babies during day time, we might also design new solutions for carrying babies much easier for our moms inside their current environment and life conditions.

3. Sleeping bed for Adults

The majority of African cant afford modern mattress. In some part of Africa people use traditionally designed beds done with knitted bags stuffed with dry herb, but some others use quite rough and unhealthy options. This is a huge market waiting for innovation.

4. Domestic Lamp
I was born in a village where there were no tap water and electricity. I was using kerosene lamps to study at night. They are very inconvenient, but also very polluting. You have read eyes very quickly and black nose.

5. Washing clothes
Innovation is required to make things easier for people to wash their clothes, as most people cant afford modern washing machine. For people who cant afford modern washing machine, we need to invent alternative technologies. This a huge market looking for smart inventors and entrepreneurs.

6. Merchant tools / Kiosk / Shop

Africa has huge informal markets where people get out on the street to sell stuff. Those people need innovation and tools to take their commerce to the next level, and also to protect public health.

7. House construction & Roofing

The rich African subalterns have opted for modern house construction using mainly materials imported from abroad. The western way of construction in Africa has brought very little innovation. The other 99% cant afford the modern construction, and has been abandoned by the local elite. We need innovators that are interested in doing research and development on local materials and ways of construction to provide decent and affordable housing for the majority.

8. Cooking
The way the majority of Africans cook their food today is not sustainable economically and ecologically. There have been some innovations going on in this field, but a lot is left to be done in term of kitchenware and stove.

9. Farming tools
One of the reason why Africa still have to buy huge quantities of food from Europe and Asia is because of the lack of local innovations to would integrate into local farmers life and improve their output. The tools our farmers are using are very rudimentary and unscalable.

10. Harvest conservation

Lack for innovation in harvest conservation in Africa is also one of the major cause of food shortage and malnutrition. The current tools the local farmers have need improvement.

11. Fetching water

Fetching water is one of the most time consuming activity for women and kids in Africa.

12. Fetching wood

Second to water fetching, wood fetching for cooking is a hard, time consuming and ecological devastating activity. My mother died bitten by a snake while she was out searching for wood to make us food. We need innovation here to alleviate the pain of people and the ecological impact of massive deforestation.

13. Local Tools Factory

Here we need entrepreneurs who could dedicate themselves to study the tools people are currently using, then proceed to create a new generation for smithy or tools factory that serve the local people needs with improved technology and usability.

14. Latrines
The traditional way of building latrine and toilet is not sustainable anymore. Adding a modern water flushing toilet in every African house is not a sustainable solution too. We need innovation here in order to preserve people dignity and also protect public health and underground water so many are depend on (see next point on wells)

15. Wells digging, Usage & Protection

Wells are one of the solution to the soul breaking water fetching duty on woman. In many African villages and cities people dont use water from wells anymore because most of their water has been infested by the latrines infiltrations. Still wells are part of the solution, and new and innovative ways to dig and protect them need to be invented.

16. Water tanks

To solve the well problem, people moved to water tanks. here too we need innovation.

17. Grinding Tools

African women spend a huge amount of time grinding. We need tools, innovation here!

18. Waste disposal

Africa has a huge waste disposal problem to be addressed. From villages to cities, innovators and entrepreneurs are required to find efficient, affordable and ecological solutions.

(While researching this article Ive discovered numerous attempts and prototypes done by various people and organizations addressing some of the issues above. I also understand that its not enough to find solutions, we need entrepreneurs who could build sustainable business models and sales channels to bring the innovations to the people who need them. Otherwise, most the innovators will receive awards for their discoveries and gains some celebrity status but the technologies never reach the very people they are intended to).