Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

AN OVERVIEW OF ENGINEERING4.4.2 Engineers Without BordersAndrew LambBackgroundFrom chairs and doors to laptops and spacecraft, technologygives people capabilities that extend and enhance theirown. For centuries, engineers have developed technologyto advance people’s capabilities and have used technologyto lift the human condition, enrich human endeavours andraise the human spirit. But for all this success, the work is notyet complete. Many engineers feel and know that, in the racefor technological advancement, too many people have beenleft behind. Many engineers see technological developmentsimply happening for its own sake in a world where extremeprofligacy and extreme poverty can be contemporaries, withskyscrapers next to slums. Many engineers fear that their workis being motivated only by the drive for economic advancement,which seems increasingly disconnected from thepremise of the meeting of basic needs that once formed thevery purpose of their profession.Many engineers, given the apparent absence of alternatives,are increasingly finding their own ways to meet some of thegreatest challenges the human race has ever faced. EngineersWithout Borders (EWB) groups are part of this movement,and in many ways they have become a movement themselves.They are a reaction to the failure of many governments, engineeringcompanies and engineering institutions to mobilizeand use technology and infrastructure to fight poverty andsuffering around the world.Introduction to Engineers Without BordersEngineers Without Borders groups draw on the expertise ofengineers to meet basic needs and provide water, food, shelter,energy, communications, transport, education, training andhealthcare – and indeed dignity – to people living in poverty.They focus their work on the poorest nations and, in their owncountries, have become voices of awareness, understandingand advocacy on the role of technology in international development.Several EWB groups have become well-establishedinternational development organizations in their own right,gaining significant support from the engineering community,engineering firms and other aid organizations. A few EWBorganizations focus some of their work on humanitarian reliefor on key environmental concerns and sustainability issues.Although most of the leading EWB organizations are in developednations, there are – excitingly – a growing number ofEWB groups in developing countries.and where people can take their own path out of poverty. Itcan also refer to the idea that the engineers are working inplaces ‘where there is no engineer’, in countries that lack sufficientdomestic engineering capacity (which perhaps couldbe called ‘borders without engineers’) or where that capacity isbeing misdirected. Indeed, this is perhaps closer to the meaningof ‘Without Borders’ as it is used by humanitarian and relieforganizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières or ReportersWithout Borders, where political boundaries are secondary tothe humanitarian imperative or universal human rights. Otherinterpretations of the name include the idea of solidarity withothers and it emphasizes that the work is international, charitable/voluntaryand inter-disciplinary in nature (i.e. there is no‘Civil Engineers Without Borders’ or ‘Electrical Engineers WithoutBorders’). It is worth noting that most EWB groups do notlimit participation only to engineers, though the work itselfdoes mainly focus on technology. Some of the names used byEWB groups could translate more accurately into English as‘Engineering Without Borders’ or as ‘Engineers Without Frontiers’,but the ideas behind these names are similar.History of Engineers Without BordersThe first organization to carry the name Engineers WithoutBorders started in France. Ingénieurs sans Frontières (ISF) wasestablished in 1982 as an association for French internationalsolidarity, created to provide technical assistance to developmentprojects in underprivileged communities in developingcountries and to educate the engineering community on theproblems in those areas. In the mid-1980s, ISF Belgium wasestablished and it later merged with Ingénieurs AssistanceInternational (established in the mid-1990s by a national civilengineering professional body) to form the ISF Belgium oftoday. Ingeniería Sin Fronteras was established in Spain in 1990and is now the largest EWB organization in the world. Theseorganizations were founded by students at their universitiesand later grew to form national federations, characteristic ofmany of the EWB organizations that followed. Working with local peopleto mix concrete for a bridgeanchor in Kibera, Kenya.The name Engineers Without Borders is an evocative and powerfulone, which has itself contributed to the growth of themovement. It refers to the concept of capabilities and developmentas freedom, where barriers to development are removed© Joe Mulligan, EWB-UK159