STRATEGY WORKSHOP- LONDON, 14 MARCH 2007

Guests included Ian Neal from Engineers Against Poverty, Michael Jay the recently retired Head of the Diplomatic Service (and now an active peer Baron Jay of Ewelme) and Aniek Atak, a Sudanese architect.

The energetic discussions focused on:

1. Our approach.
It was concluded that our three-pronged approach:  appropriate technology, small business support and community participation is broadly sound. But we must not be led by technologies, remember that local entrepreneurs can help develop better technologies and that the market will decide what works and is affordable. The group also advised on basic criteria to select partner organisations or local builders to work with. The process of genuine community participation was stressed as essential to building ownership in community projects such as schools.

2. Our Role.
Facilitating and supporting specific building projects is where we should start in order to get our footprints on the ground. More work needs to be done on who we target: the builder, household or local government (this will depend upon where we are working). We should also take advantage of opportunities to influence local policies and good practice amongst builders and related skills. For example, improving specifications for school buildings in Zambia. Advocacy work with donors to improve the way they spend our money can happen once we have established a track record.

3. Getting started.
It was agreed to establish one or two focus countries to get started. We are now looking at South Sudan, Zambia and Malawi. However, we will retain the capacity to respond to one off requests for assistance. We also need to increase our fund-raising efforts and intend a formal launch appeal later this year.

The findings and feedback from supporters and other advisors will be brought together in a strategy paper by the end of April which will be posted here.

Please us if you would like to contribute - we want to hear from you!

Thank-you.

Andrew Jowett
Director.

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