Does Practical Action work in industrialised countries?
At present 75 per cent of the world’s population shares just 15 per cent of the world’s wealth. The area in which these people live is commonly known by a variety of titles – the South, the Third World, the developing world. The philosophy in which Practical Action is rooted – of ‘economics as if people mattered’ – is equally applicable to industrialised ‘North’ and the developing ‘South’. It suggests an alternative way of doing things which is on a human and local scale, which does not replace human beings, which values their cultures and environment. But ‘North’ and ‘South’ are two very different contexts. Practical Action’s own principal aims have always concerned assistance to people in developing countries, initially to improve their technical knowledge and methods, but for the last 25 years as a development organisation with a mission to reduce poverty. Practical Action believes that, with its limited financial and human resources, but with a wealth of development knowledge and e
