Since 1966 we have proved that poverty can be reduced by using technology in an appropriate and sustained manner. Guided by the philosohy of our founder, Ernst Fritz Schumacher, the author of Small is beautiful, we work to demonstrate that the simplest ideas can have profound, life-changing effects on poor people across the world.
We do not start with technology, but with people. The tools may be simple or sophisticated, but to provide long-term, appropriate and practical answers, they must be firmly in the hands of local people: people who shape technology and control it for themselves.
The work developed in our programmes using appropriate technologies focuses on four areas:
- Disaster prevention and environmental risk management (adapting to climate change). [Go]
- Making markets work for poor people (agriculture, farming, forestry, rural agroindustry, etc).[Go]
- Improving access to services (energy, water, sanitation).[Go]
- Responding to new technologies (ICTs, nanotechnologies).[Go]
Vision
A world free of poverty and injustice in which technology is used to the benefit of all.
Mission
To use technology to challenge poverty, working with poor people to:
- Build their capabilities.
- Improve their access to technical options and knowledge
- Help them influence the social, economic and institutional systems for innovation and use of technology.
We are an international technical cooperation organization that has been working in Latin America since 1985 and since 1966 in the different parts of the world.
Practical Action has implemented over 300 projects in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Founded in the UK, today we work through 8 regional offices, based in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Zimbabwe, England, and Peru.
Our Regional Office for Latin America (called in spanish Soluciones Prácticas), based in Lima, Peru, coordinates the work we carry out in this region and currently has country offices in both Peru and Bolivia.
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