Keynote address on management and planning

Appropriate technology is not a different technology; it is not unconventional, nor necessarily labour intensive, nor a second-rate alternative. Appropriate technology is simply that technology which is appropriate to the prevailing social, economic and cultural needs of a particular country. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to think of conventional technology as being equipment intensive principally because "most engineers are schooled in their use. The industrialized countries use equipment or capital intensive technologies because they are rich. The converse is not true, i.e. that they are rich because they use capital intensive technologies. Moreover in the poorer countries of the world it is likely that the appropriate technology will be more labour intensive.