AID HAND - OPERATED WATER PUMP : A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

This report describes an A.I.D. project to promote the use of locally-produced water pumps in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Ecuador. A.I.D. and the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), the project implementing agency, surveyed various nations" ability to manufacture the pump, their enthusiasm for the endeavor, the pumps" applicablity to rural water supply programs (particularly those already involving A.I.D.), and local pump manufacturing costs versus import costs. An initial production run gauged local manufacturers" capabilities, with GIT supplying appropriate technical assistance. After inspection, the pumps were installed in rural areas for field tests, with recipients also receiving on-the-job training in water hygiene and pump maintenance. Under this project, A.I.D."s U.S.-manufactured Dempster deep and shallow pumps were compared on the basis of local applicability with the Brazilian Marumby pump, the U.S. Moyno pump, the Japanese Lucky pump, and the Canadian International Development Research Centre pump. Robo devices (valves, screens, and meters) were used successfully with the Dempster pump in Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Ecuador. After initial tests in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, there were several modifications to improve the Dempster pump; the then government of Nicaragua elected to use the pump in a national program, but Costa Rica did not. Manufacturing problems included the unavailability of key spare parts, product quality control, and, consistently, an early underestimation of production costs. Bolivia, Togo, Benin, Liberia, and the Philippines were surveyed but were deemed ineligible for the project. The report includes a description of the involved host country institutions, diagrams of the Dempster pump, and per-country costs of pump manufacture. A 16-item (1975-80) bibliography is appended.