Last year's devastating quake in Haiti created a pressing need for new, durable housing structures. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps.

Part of a Global Envision miniseries about Portland State University's effort to become the "Consumer Reports" of developing-world technology. Read the introduction.

With the specter of Haiti’s hurricane season looming, everyone involved in the 1000 Homes for Haiti project wanted to get the sustainable, earthquake-proof shelters to the island nation as soon as possible.

But there was a catch: when the houses got wet, they leaked.

The story begins with Charles Fox of Portland’s Pacific Green Innovations (PGI), who came up with the idea for the project after a trip to Haiti in 2010, when he recognized the country’s need for low-cost, sustainable and permanent housing, according to the Portland Tribune. “If you give someone a transitional house, it becomes permanent,” he told the paper. As of August, more than 600,000 Haitians were still living in makeshift housing and tent camps, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

PGI bought building panels of resin-soaked recycled paper from a German building-material manufacturer called SwissCell, which PGI's website bills as earthquake-resistant, fire resistant, weather and temperature resistant.

In June 2010, PSU students actually assembled one of PGI's model homes in a campus park. This was partially to demonstrate another of the homes’ aspects that made it seem perfect for Haiti and the developing world in general: the building panels are modular and can be assembled quickly and simply. PGI says all of the houses’ materials can be produced in Haiti by Haitians.

Things went swimmingly until a curious detail caught the eye of a PSU researcher: the home had water damage. If sitting outside in Portland made the house leak, how would it hold up amid Haitian squalls, humidity and hurricanes? To test it, they tossed some of the panels into PSU’s state-of-the-art Thermotron, a device that, according to Senior Fellow Sergio Palleroni of PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions, "can create any environment on earth, any weather condition." They cranked up the heat and humidity to Haitian summertime levels, and let the panels stew for a couple of weeks.

The results confirmed their initial suspicions: Palleroni says that on average, the material lost 60 percent of its structural capacity to resist breakage. In high-wind, high-humidity conditions, the houses could actually fall apart. And for a Caribbean country far more prone to hurricanes than earthquakes—there were four in 2008 alone, according to The Guardian—that’s a big problem.

PGI stands by their product despite Palleroni's criticism. PGI’s manufacturer, Magnum Building Products, wrote in an email to Global Envision that PSU's testing may not have been reliable.

"When installed properly and finished per the guidelines also found on our website, Magnum Board structures will be in use far longer than most any other building product on the market today,” wrote Daniel Armstrong. His full response can be found below, in the comments section.

PSU researchers don’t say the houses have no use, but they don’t think they are a good permanent solution for Haiti. Palleroni pointed out that while the building materials may have passed the manufacturer’s test, they were tested as separate components; the problems showed up when they were fully assembled. PGI disagrees, with its manufacturer arguing that PSU made “no distinction as to what elements of the assembly were the primary contributor(s)" to the homes' failure.” PGI has already implemented their housing program in Haiti.

While there’s no consensus over the houses’ suitability for Haiti’s climate, the fact that there’s a debate at all is unusual. Intensive testing like the kind done at PSU is not often performed on products for the developing world. All too often, potential design problems aren’t identified until after a product is in use. Sending flawed products abroad wastes money and other resources, and in some cases the products might even hurt those that they are intended to help. Improved technologies and testing procedures allow for a longer revision period and result in better products that do more for people in need. And since that’s really the goal of humanitarian design, hopefully intensive product testing will become the norm.

Margo Conner is a senior at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, majoring in international affairs. Read her other contributions to Global Envision.

Cambodia depends heavily on water for the growth of rice which is one of the country's main exports. Photo: Fredalix (flickr)

Why would two countries with the same average rainfall have varying amounts of accessible water? Japan and Cambodia both receive around 160 cm of rainfall per year but the average Japanese person uses nearly 400 liters per day while in Cambodia the average person will likely use one-tenth of that amount. "The scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality," says a UNDP report, "not in physical availability."

Developing countries depend mostly on agricultural production as a means of income, but because agriculture accounts for roughly 70 percent of our world's water use, people in these countries heavily dependent on agriculture are left with little water for personal consumption.

In contrast, industrialized countries can use more of their water for personal use as they are able to import much of their food from other parts of the world. In Japan, agriculture makes up only 1.4 percent of GDP while in Cambodia 31 percent of GDP is dependent on the productivity and output of agriculture. This means that a water shortage in Cambodia would be far worse for the citizens and economic growth than in say, Japan.

Photo: greenhem (flickr)

Plastic bags have long been associated with litter and waste. The world uses tens of billions of plastic bags every year – bags that end up hanging from trees, traveling along freeways, escaping garbage cans and waste dumps.

Plastic-bag recycling rates are extremely low – about 1 to 3 percent worldwide, according to Reusablebags.com.

While plastics have helped us in many ways – medical advances, for one – by now we are seeing an increasing amount of wasteful uses. The mass production and ubiquitousness of plastic bags has hit a nerve in many developing countries. Lawmaking bodies in every region of the world have begun to regulate the use of plastics — and some are even banning the use of plastic bags outright.

Here's a partial list:

India. In August 2005, the state of Maharashtra initiated a bag ban after bags "blocked sewage and drainage systems during record monsoon rains," according to The Guardian. "Flooding and landslides killed more than 1,000 people in the state.” Anyone seen with a plastic bag can be fined 1,000 rupees, or about $25.

Kenya. The East African nation has enforced new regulations banning production and distribution of light-density bags, according to Nairobi's Business Daily (as reported by allAfrica.com). Three years ago, Kenyan researchers had appealed for a ban, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai had argued that plastic bags can lead to malaria, because discarded bags left outside can fill with rainwater and breed disease-carrying mosquitoes.

Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya's neighbors also banned the use of all disposable one-use plastic bags nationwide. One Ugandan blogger wrote that “This seemingly radical step has a direct connection to human health and also to environmental well-being of citizens across Africa. Apart from the fossil fuel usage needed in their production, plastic bags have a remarkable ability to pollute across borders.”

China. Authorities announced that by this June, one-use plastic bags will be outlawed in the hope that residents will return to their old habit of using cloth bags and baskets. "Beijing residents appeared to take the ban in stride, reflecting rising environmental consciousness and concern over skyrocketing oil prices," reports National Geographic.

Some developed nations also have taken drastic steps to reduce the impact of plastics. Ireland, for example, imposed a 33-cent tax in 2002. It worked quickly to depress demand. According to the New York Times, the use of plastic bags dropped 94 percent within weeks.

Photo: JohnMMM (Flickr)

Typically, the discovery of “black gold” in African countries has led to conflict over land and overwhelms governments with more revenue than can be effectively managed. Brutal secessionist conflicts have been taking place for years in countries rich with oil, including Sudan, Nigeria and Angola. Ghana hopes to buck the trend. The country is one of the most stable on the continent and responsible development of its oil industry can provide a good model for other African nations.

"There’s no reason that oil should be a curse,” one government official told Financial Times, which recently published a special report on Africa's fossil-fuel resources. “We want to make sure we follow the example of countries like Canada or Norway who’ve used oil to their benefit."

Why can’t African countries – or any developing country, for that matter – use newfound oil wealth to raise living standards for all citizens? For starters, the oil market is vulnerable to price shocks, and the centralized revenues are susceptible to theft. Dependency on oil as a primary commodity can discourage economic diversification.

Another critical issue is the exploitation of indigenous populations near extraction sites, a prime example being the abuses felt by those in the Niger delta region of Nigeria. Governments frequently overlook the fundamental needs of communities adjacent to oil drilling sites. Ghana’s new oil find may not be very beneficial to communities that fish the waters where the discovery was made.

Can Ghana avoid these pitfalls? The government says it plans to use the oil wealth to turn Ghana into "a middle-income country" by 2015, and to invest in infrastructure, health care and education. That's reminiscent of rhetoric used by officials in Nigeria, Angola, and the Congo — all are failing to follow through with those promises.

Can Ghana succeed in turning the “black gold” into a blessing for its citizens, or will oil once again prove a curse?

Tobacco Farm. Photo: norsenut (flickr)

One of the most ambitious attempts to control tobacco in the world is being ignored.
The World Health Organization’s tobacco control treaty entered into effect almost exactly three years ago today. It was an unprecedented move by global leaders to target the harmful public health outcome of increased tobacco use, notable especially in the developing world.

According to the World Health Organization, if current trends in the expansion of tobacco use worldwide continue, especially in the developing world where currently half of the deaths due to tobacco occur, “seven out of every ten deaths due to tobacco will occur in the developing world by 2020.”

Three years from the day the treaty went into effect, many countries have made no progress toward minimizing this potential public health disaster, according to the editorial board of the New York Times. "With tobacco use declining in wealthier countries, tobacco companies are spending tens of billions of dollars a year on advertising, marketing and sponsorship, much of it to increase sales in these developing countries." This inundation, as well as the tax revenue governments in developing countries can obtain from tobacco companies, have discouraged many of the countries most crucially affected by tobacco use from pushing any harder to promote the changes of this treaty.

Finally, there is an upbeat news piece about Africa. The BBC released a brief story on Jan. 31st about the opening of a stock market in Rwanda. For a country that has known its share of sorrow, this is one more element that can direct Rwanda toward a more hopeful future.

Upon opening the Rwanda Capital Market, President Paul Kagame described it as a milestone for the nation. The hope is that the exchange will aid the economy, which has yet to bounce back after the 1994 genocide.

Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Can poor countries afford to be green?

A new report, the annually released Environmental Performance Index suggests that poor countries have been justified to disagree with blocs who demand environmental and other green protections even to the opposition of economic growth, according to the Economist. The connection between economic growth and the environment is not entirely clear, the study finds.

“Economic growth, coupled with good governance, may yet prove to be a source of solutions rather than problems. At the moment, perhaps 2 billion people have no formal access to modern energy—they make do with cow dung, agricultural residue and other solid fuels which are far from healthy. Unless foresight and intelligence are applied to the satisfaction of these people's needs, they may embrace the filthiest and most carbon-emitting forms of fossil-fuel energy as soon as they get the chance.”

The report concludes that a combination of growth and transparent government may be the only solution to avoiding this potential disaster. In fact, if developing countries were able to bypass the most polluting stages of their economic development, all parties would be better off.