According to a New Scientist article there are a number of developments in store for wireless energy supply to mobile and household devices. The article quotes a representative of the Energy Saving Trust, who points out that their quoted rates of efficiency (10%-60%) means they are a potential source of significant inefficiency.
If this is true, then it would be worth compiling a set of modelled applications, using life-cycle analysis for wired and wireless powered devices and typical energy usage in modern households.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Indigenous contracts
In development work, it's quite often the case that an external organisation wishes to forms contracts with local actors to undertake development activity.
At the extreme you might consider the World Bank negotiating a development project with illiterate representatives of an indigenous tribe. Typically there is talk of either representation (through a civil society or governmental organisation) or capacity building or both - the issue is that the Bank has a particular way of framing contracts, of creating a formal basis for the trust that underpins the transaction - If you do this, then we will do that, and so on.
There's a similar situation around contracting research with developing country partners - they might be very good researchers without necessarily being able to provide the sort of evidence that a body commissioning research recognises.
Contracts are institutionalised both formally and informally - in other words they depend on a written agreement, but also by a set of understandings by both parties about what a contract means, how it will actually be reinforced and what action will be taken by the contracting parties in the case of a misunderstanding or conflict over it. You can't write absolutely everything down, and in the end contracts stand on a degree of trust too.
Trust relationships seem fairly universal to humanity, although the cultural expression and situated institutionalisation varies a lot. So the question is whether rather than the local actors learning to institutionalise a contract in the style of the world bank style, whether the World Bank can develop a capacity to understand and then enter into contracts in a style that is closer to local norms.
At the extreme you might consider the World Bank negotiating a development project with illiterate representatives of an indigenous tribe. Typically there is talk of either representation (through a civil society or governmental organisation) or capacity building or both - the issue is that the Bank has a particular way of framing contracts, of creating a formal basis for the trust that underpins the transaction - If you do this, then we will do that, and so on.
There's a similar situation around contracting research with developing country partners - they might be very good researchers without necessarily being able to provide the sort of evidence that a body commissioning research recognises.
Contracts are institutionalised both formally and informally - in other words they depend on a written agreement, but also by a set of understandings by both parties about what a contract means, how it will actually be reinforced and what action will be taken by the contracting parties in the case of a misunderstanding or conflict over it. You can't write absolutely everything down, and in the end contracts stand on a degree of trust too.
Trust relationships seem fairly universal to humanity, although the cultural expression and situated institutionalisation varies a lot. So the question is whether rather than the local actors learning to institutionalise a contract in the style of the world bank style, whether the World Bank can develop a capacity to understand and then enter into contracts in a style that is closer to local norms.
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