Sugar and Maize Meal: cases in inappropriate technology from Kenya

Abstract

Industrialisation in Africa and elsewhere has been beset with problems, many of which relate to the selection of ‘inappropriate technology’, or processes which are far from optimal in their use of labour and capital in the context of developing economy. Many products have no alternative methods of manufacture because they have been created in an industrialised economy, and the only existing technology reflects the skill, labour, and capital constraints of that environment. Plastics moulding, oil refining, and many metal-forming techniques are examples of this situation. The process itself is basic to the nature of the product, so that the choice of a more labour-intensive technology would result in the selection of a different product altogether. There might be no viable alternative, as in the case of petroleum products, or the alternative might be unacceptable because of its inferior performance in relation to the more sophisticated product which people already know. Processes which appear hopelessly capital intensive, and thus quite unsuitable for a developing country, may be appropriate because they form an essential part of an industry whose raw material involves economically and socially beneficial methods of production. In certain circumstances a paper-making factory could fall into this category, since the ‘inappropriateness’ of that technology might be offset by the benefits of the timber industry which is labour intensive and spread over a wide area. Some products, such as medicines, books, or fertilisers are essential and expensive to import, so it may be economically sensible to manufacture them locally in spite of other considerations.