Jean-Claude Bolay

Alexandre Schmid

Gabriela Tejada

Eileen Hazboun

Technological innovation – combined with scientific research – has always constituted a driving force of transformation in our societies. At the same time, it is no longer simply possible to transfer technologies from the North to the South; it is also essential to consider technical innovations that are adapted to the social, environmental, cultural and economic conditions of receiving countries, and which can be appropriated by their potential users and as such prove to be real technologies for fostering development. The first International Scientific Conference on the topic organized by the UNESCO Chair Technologies for Development at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2010 focused on its four priority sectors: Technologies for Sustainable Development of Habitat and Cities, ICTs for the Environment, Science and Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction, and Technologies for the Production of Sustainable Energy. This volume reflects the main outcomes of the conference and provides some significant orientation and success criteria for the effective implementation and use of innovative technologies, their aims, their particular applications in the context of developing countries, their accessibility for users, and their appropriation by producers and stakeholders in the field of development both in the North and South, thus ensuring their sustainability. This kind of scientific cooperation also highlights the added values for northern researchers in sharing their knowledge and know-how, leading to a real win-win partnership. The authors gathered within this book include representatives from academic and research institutions and other organizations from diverse countries and offer a significant synergy of competences, approaches and disciplines.

Scientific Cooperation for a Sustainable Future

Technologies and Innovations for Development

This open access book revisits the theoretical foundations of urban planning and the application of these concepts and methods in the context of Southern countries by examining several case studies from different regions of the world. For instance, the case of Koudougou, a medium-sized city in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, with a population of 115.000 inhabitants, allows us to understand concretely which and how these deficiencies are translated in an African urban context. In contrast, the case of Nueve de Julio, intermediate city of 50.000 dwellers in the pampa Argentina, addresses the new forms of spatial fragmentation and social exclusion linked with agro export and crisis of the international markets. Case studies are also included for cities in Asia and Latin America. Differences and similarities between cases allow us to foresee alternative models of urban planning better adapted to tackle poverty and find efficient ways for more inclusive cities in developing and emerging countries, interacting several dimensions linked with high rates of urbanization: territorial fragmentation; environmental contamination; social disparities and exclusion, informal economy and habitat, urban governance and democracy.

How to Think and Do Better Cities in the Global South

Urban Planning Against Poverty

Silvia Hostettler

Samira Najih Besson

This open access book presents 18 case studies that explore current scientific and technological efforts to address global development issues, such as poverty, from a holistic and interdisciplinary point of view, putting actual impacts at the centre of its analysis. It illustrates the use of technologies for development in various fields of research, such as humanitarian action, medical and information and communication technology, disaster risk-reduction technologies, habitat and sustainable access to energy. The authors discuss how innovative technologies, such as unmanned aerial vehicles for disaster risk reduction, crowdsourcing humanitarian data, online education and ICT-based medical technologies can have significant social impact. The book brings together the best papers of the 2016 International Conference on Technologies for Development at EPFL, Switzerland. The book explores how the gap between innovation in the global South and actual social impact can be bridged. It fosters exchange between engineers, other scientists, practitioners and policy makers active at the interface of innovation and technology and human, social, and economic development.

From Innovation to Social Impact

Technologies for Development

Jérôme Chenal

Yves Pedrazzini

This book deals with slums as a specific question and a central focus in urban planning. It radically reverses the official version of the history of world cities as narrated during decades: slums are not at the margin of the contemporary process of urbanization; they are an integral part of it. Taking slums as its central focus and regarding them as symptomatic of the ongoing transformations of the city, the book moves to the very heart of the problem in urban planning. The book presents 16 case studies that form the basis for a theory of the slum and a concrete development manual for the slum. The interdisciplinary approach to analysing slums presented in this volume enables researchers to look at social and economic dimensions as well as at the constructive and spatial aspects of slums. Both at the scientific and the pedagogical level, it allows one to recognize the efforts of the slum’s residents, key players in the past, and present development of their neighborhoods, and to challenge public and private stakeholders on priorities decided in urban planning, and their mismatches when compared to the findings of experts and the demands of users. Whether one is a planner, an architect, a developer or simply an inhabitant of an emerging city, the presence of slums in one’s environment – at the same time central and nonetheless incongruous – makes a person ask questions. Today, it is out of the question to be satisfied with the assumption of the marginality of slums, or of the incongruous nature of their existence. Slums are now fully part of the urban landscape, contributing to the identity and the urbanism of cities and their stakeholders.

Jean-Claude Bolay

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