South-South technology transfer - Low Cost, High Impact Building Materials

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promoting South - South Cooperation in poverty alleviation and post crisis reconstruction: MoU with India's Department of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation(DUEPA) in January 2004. The delegation, led by DUEPA Secretary L.M. Mehta, comprised: Ambassador of India & Permanent Representative to UNIDO, T.P. Sreenivasan, HUDCO Chairman-cum-MD, P.S. Rana and BMTPC Executive Director, T.N. Gupta
By June 2004, a UNIDO programme financed by Japan's Human Security Fund to set up an environmentally friendly, energy efficient, low cost building materials sector in Afghanistan should be underway. The immediate focus will be on the creation of 10 self sustaining enterprises and the building 100 demonstration dwelling units in Kabul. The programme will be implemented in close cooperation with the UN Human Settlements Programme, UN HABITAT and the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan ( UNAMA ). The transfer of low cost building materials technologies is an important component of (but not exclusive to) UNIDO's Post Crisis Initiative .

Other countries high on the "needs list" for such projects include: Kenya; Malawi, Mozambique; Sudan; Uganda; Zambia; and of course, Iraq. Serious donor interest has already been expressed for Mozambique ( DANIDA ), Sudan (Japan) and the Eastern Africa Region by the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, (BADEA ).

The expertise that UNIDO will apply to these projects has been built up over the last ten years through its International Centre for Science and High Technology ( ICS, Trieste, Italy ) and International Centre for Advancement of Manufacturing Technology ( ICAMT, Bangalore, India ), in partnership with India's Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC ) and Housing and Urban Development Corporation ( HUDCO ), two institutions that operate under India's Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation ( MoUD&PA ) (view list of selected events ).

UNIDO's ten year partnership with India in the low cost building materials sector was cemented on 12 January, 2004, when the then Secretary of India's Department of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation, L. M. Mehta, signed a Memorandum of Understanding MoU with UNIDO on technical cooperation in low cost housing (the current Secretary, appointed on Mr. Mehta's retirement, is Mr. A. N. Tiwan). The MoU, which received specific encouragement from the Governments of Afghanistan, Ghana, Mexico, Egypt, Mozambique, Namibia, Peru, Rwanda, Venezuela, Uruguay, Sudan and Sri Lanka, will facilitate the establishment national and regional Technology Demonstration and Diffusion Centres for new and proven technologies for manufacturing environment friendly and energy efficient building materials.
some of the low-cost environment friendly technologies
These technologies, (view or download BMTPC range ) which are also low cost, take a number of forms. Some use innovative composite materials based on local resources from forestry, agriculture, natural fibres, plant materials, and other resources such as agricultural and industrial wastes available within small geographical regions. Bamboo is another material grown widely in developing countries for which new technologies have been developed to overcome problems formerly caused by moisture and insects. Other technologies enable the production of blended cements and binders from industrial ashes and slags from furnaces and power houses and residues and tailings from copper, zinc, gold and iron ore mining. Mineral fibre-based artificial materials like fiberglass, basalt fibres, carbon fibres, fibres of blended mineral composition, etc. are significantly superior (in terms of their strength, thermo-physical characteristics, durability, purity of environment, availability and cost) to plastics, wood and aluminum. The availability of, and ability to use, primary raw materials such as quartz sand, basic rocks, carbon, etc., will diminish dependence on conventional materials and products for the construction sector.

Indian technologies are not the only ones available through the UNIDO programme. Low cost building materials that have been successfully commercialised in a number of other countries: China; Sri Lanka; Kenya; Tanzania; Ghana; Brazil; and Peru are all available for "south south" transfer.
some of the low-cost environment friendly products
The cost advantage of building materials produced with equipment manufactured in the south (and the equipment itself) was dramatically illustrated in research done by DANIDA in Mozambique. Intending to allocate some US million to construct 60,000 school rooms at a rate of 6,000 per year, DANIDA set a limit on cost per school room of US-12,000. According to their research on locally available production processes, the cost per school room was US,000. A UNIDO proposal based on low-cost technology put cost per school room around US,500. The initial UNIDO project in Mozambique, based around a self-sustaining Production / Demonstration / Technology Diffusion Centre, will be for 250 school rooms (this centre is at the same time a production site which is used for on the job training and a showroom with a range of "best practice" materials and technologies). The cost to establish a conventional plant of "northern" design and train operators to process building debris was US0,000. An Indian alternative to this equipment cost US,000. The Indian equipment is also mobile, meaning the plant can be taken to the debris rather than vice versa (a handy option if the roads and transport facilities are not so good).

Another event which signified a coming of age of UNIDO's low cost housing programme was the ICAMT – BMTPC / HUDCO International Exhibition and Seminar on Low Cost Housing Technologies, in Bangalore, India, 13-16 December 1999. UNIDO requested nine African governments to identify entrepreneurs most likely to make a successful business out of low cost housing. Speaking to UNIDOScope about the event, UNIDO's low cost housing specialist, Vladimir Kozharnovich said "The event comprised one and a half days of workshops an exhibition of building products and machinery and visits to production sites. On the last day, the nine participants only had two requests: to have their visas extended and to sign contracts. They signed 45 contracts to a value of US0,000 and no one asked for a single dollar from UNIDO!  Within six months, UNIDO received an invitation to the inauguration of the East African Regional Association of Private Producers of Low Cost Building Materials!"

Today, as a result of the various promotional events undertaken by the UNIDO - BMTPC/HUDCO partners, equipment producers in India cannot meet the demand (even though the objective of the promotion was to licence the equipment, rather than sell it). This is another important aspect of the project: the development of the building materials production sector and the machinery production sector (in addition to providing low cost environmentally friendly housing)!

In addition to being environmentally friendly and cheap, the technology is easy to master. "This advantage was clearly demonstrated at the exhibition and regional seminar in Venezuela (15-19 May 2002)" said Mr. Kozharnovich, "the Indian technicians employed local people to help with the installation of the equipment at the exhibition site. By the time the equipment was installed (in less than a week) the local people (irrespective of whether they were skilled, non-skilled, semi skilled) had learned how to use it well enough to do the demonstrations! Not only that, the equipment is also very easily produced in the country. The Indian manufacturers would rather issue licences to local manufacturers than try to sell the equipment, because the transportation costs often exceed the cost of the equipment.

The development of low cost environmentally friendly building materials is not just an issue for developing countries. Industrialized countries have already developed strategies and set up national policy and institutional infrastructures to support increased utilisation of secondary and locally available resources for manufacturing of construction materials. However, experience has shown that technologies developed in the industrialized countries are too costly and sophisticated to be absorbed by the developing countries, particularly the least developed, and those in post crisis situations, where they are most needed.

"The dissemination of information on available technologies is another important function of the UNIDO programme" says UNIDO's Mr. Kozharnovich. "At the regional workshop in Uganda in 1998, someone from Botswana said "we have a housing programme, we have the plants which produce the construction materials, but we need to import all the steel rods we use to reinforce the concrete - at a very high cost." He did not know about the technology that uses basalt as a replacement for steel. The majority of his country is sitting on basalt, which is a material used by one of these low cost building materials technologies to replace steel to reinforce concrete. And the basalt fibres can be produced using typical machines used in the plastics industry. Unlike iron, the basalt does not corrode, so the quality is better and the product life longer. The equipment to melt the basalt only costs US0,000." The participation of UN HABITAT in the Uganda workshop laid the foundations for UNIDO - HABITAT cooperation in the transfer of low cost building materials technology.
south south cooperation for transfer of low cost environment friendly building materials technology to Afghanistan - funded by Japan's Human Security Trust Fund
A number of efforts have been made in the past by a variety of international agencies to strengthen national capacity, industrial services and transfer know-how in the area of materials for the construction industry. But these projects, because of their short-term nature, have failed to create any industry-wide impact. The UNIDO programme is based on the understanding that strengthening the technology diffusion, transfer and absorption capacity and linking the technology transfer processes to investment mechanisms and improving the policy environment require longer-term commitment and a mission-mode project approach.

India's Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council ( BMTPC ), UNIDO's main counterpart in the programme and cosignatory of the MoU, was chosen because of the way it applies these principles in its everyday work. The breadth of representation on the BMTPC Board of Management give a clear indication of the seriousness and sophistication of the Indian approach. India's Minister of Urban Affairs and Employment is the ex-officio President and the Secretary Department of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation, Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment, the Vice President of the Council. The Board of Management of the BMTPC has representatives from all concerned Central Ministries viz. Finance, Industrial Development, Rural Affairs and Employment, Department of Power, Science and Technology, Small Scale Industries, Environment, Scientific and Industrial Research and Planning Commission. The State Governments, Housing Finance and Industrial Development and Promotion Agencies such as the Housing and Urban Development Corporation ( HUDCO ), the National Housing Bank (NHB), IDBI Bank , the Industrial Finance Corporation of India ( IFCI ), the Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry ( ICCI ), are also represented on the Board. To draw upon the experience and expertise in the area of building materials technology, eminent technologists, professionals of the public sector construction agencies, the corporate sector, R & D and standardisation organisations are also associated with the Board of Management.

A second counterpart in the Afghanistan programme is the China Building Materials Academy ( CBMA ). The CBMA is also the host and counterpart of the latest of UNIDO's International Technology Centres : the International Centre for Materials Technology Promotion(ICM). The CBMA consists of five research institutes and one design institute, two national engineering centres, three key laboratories open to enterprises working with building materials, three centres for testing and nine quality control centres for building materials products. The capacities of both the CBMA and the BMTPC will be available as technical support services to the project.

The low cost building materials production units in Afghanistan will be linked to and complemented by mini-cement plants, maximising the potential for the development of small-scale and micro enterprises especially in rural areas (in phase II of the programme) that involve skilled, semi-skilled and non-skilled workers, including women, in the production process. The technologies have shown a good potential for job creation and, with an optimum man-machine mix using simple machines, lack of transportation infrastructure and existence of local material resources, meet the need for decentralized production of building materials in the country. The technologies transferred within the frame of the project will also provide substantive input to the rehabilitation and construction of pedestrian bridges, drains, sewage systems, irrigation channels, installation of water supply systems, sports facilities and public service buildings, such as schools, clinics and community centres.

Vladimir Kozharnovich, Tel: +43 1 26026 3720,

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