2023-07-23 07:32:00
In 2019, a film inspired by an autobiographical novel and a true story was released on Netflix. That of a 14-year-old Malawian teenager who, in 2001, managed to build, in his small village in the district of Kasungu, a wind turbine capable of supplying some of the electrical appliances in the family home. The only resources available to young William Kamkwamba: an old science manual, eucalyptus wood and spare bicycle parts.
Highly publicized at the end of the 2000s, the facts on which The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind have traveled the world. But do they really have the exceptional character attributed to them? In sub-Saharan Africa, where the informal sector is an essential component of the economy (between 25 and 65% of GDP, according to the IMF), many Africans are inventive in solving their daily problems without resorting to industrial facilities. And this, even if they have to manufacture themselves, with the means at hand, all kinds of electrical, mechanical or even electronic devices…
Fablabs like no other
Accentuated first by the rise of the Internet, this African Do it Yourself trend has been gaining momentum for several years. Driven by the emergence, or rather the re-emergence of an old notion, that of “common good”, or more simply of “common”, a phenomenon is in full expansion on the continent: the multiplication of open and collaborative digital production workshops. These “fablabs”, a concept born in the United States at the end of the 1990s, are far from having spread only to Africa, but they have a very particular destiny there.
If in the United States and Europe, these “makerspaces” tend to be oriented towards advanced technologies, those who have settled in these latitudes have a completely different specialty: low-tech. A difference that can be explained, unsurprisingly, by very limited sources of funding… Rare are the African fablabs which, like their counterparts in the North, are systematically equipped with 3D printers and scanners or even laser and vinyl cutters. The paraphernalia made available to aspiring designers and manufacturers is often reduced to the bare minimum, namely computers, simple printers and small tools.
Far from having discouraged those who manage these places, this financial and material precariousness has led them to innovate and use their networks. The master word ? Recycling. Buying new is not an option, so we collect, on the right, on the left, from specific partners, second-hand equipment. This is the case, for example, of Babylab, in Côte d’Ivoire, which has set up a computer waste recovery channel in conjunction with French companies established in Africa (such as Société Générale). Or Blolab (Benin), which receives its equipment from international organizations (UNICEF, UNDP) and local hotels[1].
Le « low high-tech »
And this ingenuity is not limited to supply. As early as 2013, the Woelab in Togo, one of the continent’s pioneer fablabs, hit the headlines by manufacturing the very first “made in Africa” 3D printer from electronic waste. Baptized W.Afate, the machine has remained in people’s minds as one of the strong symbols of the power of African “makerspaces”. Placing Togo, a small country nestled between Ghana, Benin and Nigeria, on the global innovation map.
If the example of Woelab has largely contributed to the expansion of fablabs, particularly in West Africa, the latter has not escaped the attention of those in Europe and other countries of the North who are increasingly interested in alternative technological solutions. And in particular to this new generation of engineers who question the usual patterns of the industrial and globalized economy by looking elsewhere for more sober, more resilient, more virtuous options and, above all, likely to rethink our uses.
A reservoir of ideas
In France, the Low-Tech Lab, a pioneering structure in the field of “low technologies”, understood very early on the immense African potential when it comes to these simple, inexpensive solutions, accessible to all and using common and locally accessible means. In 2016, as he embarked on a long-term research program, a journey of several years around the world in search of the most promising low-tech solutions on the globe, Corentin de Chatelperron did not forget to stop in these lands of “resourcefulness”.
Unsurprisingly, the African coasts are even the first stage of the journey that this engineer and his crew of discoverers begin aboard the Nomade des Mers, a sort of catamaran-laboratory. In Agadir, where they drop anchor in March 2016, the treasure hunt is successful. Mehdi Berrada, a local engineer, agrees to share with them a prototype watermaker that he has developed himself. A system that requires no mechanical parts and that transforms seawater, an abundant resource, into a much less abundant resource, fresh water. And the finds keep coming. In Dakar, in April, it is the turn of Abdoulaye, a young Malian television repairer who frequents a local fablab, to show them how to make two DIY wind turbines using recycled materials. Then further south, in Toubacouta, not far from the Gambian border, a group of women taught them how to make an alternative fuel to wood, a kind of bio-charcoal made from agricultural waste and bush straw.
“Low-tech” travel diary
The Sea Nomad’s stopovers in Africa are far from being an isolated initiative. In East Africa this time, the French engineers Inès Pasqueron and Rémi Leroy also set off, in 2020, to meet individuals at the origin of sustainable techniques akin to “low technology”. The goal this time was not to test these technologies aboard an autonomous sighting boat, but to bring back from this “inspirational” trip an illustrated book with a scientific purpose and called Africalowtech.
Again, the fishing is good. From Arusha, Tanzania, the duo of explorers relates, for example, the story of a workshop like no other, part collaborative laboratory, part school for inventors. With pencil strokes and touches of watercolor, Rémy immortalizes on paper not only the various minimalist machines developed there (natural spreader, manual soap factory machine, wheelchair adapted to African roads, etc.), but also, and perhaps above all, the spirit of mutual help and initiative that reigns there. Rebelotte in Kenya, with a tanner of fish skins, then the captain of a multicolored boat made from recycled plastic. Then once more in Zanzibar, to meet women who have made seaweed farming their profession.
A current reversal?
In addition to these individual initiatives, most of which come from engineers or groups of engineers convinced that an alternative to the market economy is possible, there are also a few initiatives on a larger scale. In 2007, the Véolia Institute launched a review called FACTS Reports whose purpose is to “promote the dissemination of good practices implemented in the field […] in developed and developing countries. Practices that are sometimes informal, and whose dissemination is not intended to be exclusively one-way, but in both directions.
In 2021, in an issue dedicated to African perspectives in terms of essential services, FACTS Reports detailed, for example, the list of the most promising innovations of the continent on the theme of water, waste and energy. The following year, in a publication devoted this time to the social and economic challenges linked to ecological transformation, the review also focused on the interest of a city that would be entirely low-tech. An urban context that would encourage its inhabitants “to act, to systematically promote autonomy, simplicity, ease of repair, and accessibility to as many people as possible”. Principles, as we have seen, on which many African initiatives have much to teach us…
[1] Stephanie Leyronas, Isabelle Liotard and Gwenaëlle Prié, From informational commons to educational commons: fablabs in French-speaking Africa2018.
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