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

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTCOMAC has been faced with these challenges when calledupon to build hospitals or police posts in this region. In facingthese challenges, COMAC has come up with a number ofsolutions, including:■■Reinforced concrete foundations, with a ground beam supportedby concrete columns.Special Stabilized Soil Blocks made using special soil andcement mixes. Manually-operated blockpress. A hand mould to make sand/cement blocks. Reinforced ground beamfoundation supported by columnsin Black Cotton soil.© S. Mwangi© S. MwangiLayers of soil and cement, not exceeding 300 mm, are compactedeveryday and gradually the building is completedwithin ten days.Sand and cement blocksSand is one of the building raw materials in abundant supplyin Darfur and some other parts of Sudan. Regrettably, it hasnot been used for building construction while desertification,caused by the use of burnt bricks, continues unabated.COMAC undertook a Building Technologies Analysis in Darfurcommissioned by Mercy Corps, an American NGO working indevelopment projects in Darfur. The analysis revealed that theconstruction costs of a building would be reduced by 30 percent with the introduction of solid sand/cement blocks, and50 per cent with hollow sand cement blocks.Special foundations for Black Cotton soil areasConstruction in Black Cotton soil is a major challenge in SouthSudan. When wet, the soil swells and when it dries it shrinksand cracks. These movements can cause a building to crackunless special foundations are designed to withstand them.In Upper Nile and Jonglei States of Southern Sudan, Black CottonSoil covers several square kilometres of land, stretching todepths exceeding five metres. The two states also faces a majorchallenge due to the unavailability of raw materials suitable forconstruction such as sand and gravel.© S. Mwangi■Laying a floating floor screed with cement/sand mortar,reinforced with chicken wire.Accelerated dissemination of ABT’s in Sudan and otherdeveloping countriesHousing, a basic human need, and unemployment are two ofthe major problems faced by many developing countries. As ifthat is not bad enough, environmental degradation is a majorphenomenon in developing countries.In all these three compounded problems (housing, unemploymentand environmental degradation) one potentialsolution lies with the introduction, promotion and enforcementof Appropriate Building Technologies (ABT’s), alreadymentioned. For this to happen and for the impact to be feltby the beneficiaries, deliberate policies and decisions have tobe made and enforced by policy and decision-makers in governments,donor and development organizations directly orindirectly involved in development projects in the developingcountries.For this to happen in an accelerated way, donors, policy anddecision-makers need to:■■Support the use of these technologies by insisting thatthey be given preference in the projects they fund or support.Support organizations and companies such as COMAC whopromote these technologies by recommending their developmentalconstruction approach be adopted by governmentsand development partners.■Support a monitoring program of assessing how these technologiesperform over time. The Poles and Rammed Earthconstruction process. A completed building inSouth Sudan.© S. Mwangi© S. Mwangi282