Aluminium boat out of one piece - self casted, one big mold...

"Poor farmers blame lack of transportation ..... city dwellers condemned to rely on expensive exports"

For millennia very simple people have built very simple boats with little resources. The key? They wanted to do it and did not want to blame others for their lack. If anyone in Congo would have a shred of interest in doing something about this problem rather than finding someone to blame, Congo would be prosperous and a flotilla of wooden barges would be going up and down the river.

The crisis in Congo is clearly not one of transport and building 100 new boats and giving them away would not solve it.

 

Mmm, most agronomists, development agencies and transportation experts disagree. As in many countries, lack of rural transport means is a big break on development.

And it's indeed one of the key drivers of Congo's plight, as it is elsewhere throughout the developing world (so many studies on this topic!)

Infrastructures require huge investments, and present a well-known dilemma in development economics:

-as long as there is no economic output in rural areas, governments are not interested in investing in rural infrastructures

-and as long as there are no rural infrastructures, rural populations produce no economic output.

A well-known dilemma.

Luckily, rural infrastructures are back high on the development agenda of the international agencies, - after decennia of neglect.

Nobody's going to give away boats. We want to build boats as a business.

It will solve it.

But the question is: who wants to take the risk? Only adventurous investors will. And there's not many out there.

 

By the way, to those who have suggested so many options:

-we're more and more looking into refurbishing existing boats that are now in the boat cemetary, rotting away.

-it might be the most economical of all the options, because we think we might get some of these boats for free (that is: with a small bribe only)

 

Didn't mean to start a pissing match here. If you have the skills then its all good.

I have never run a development project but I have lead other kinds of projects and my father has ran number of rural development projects (several in Africa - though different corner from yours) with very good track record of staying afloat long after the international organizations have left - and the kind that truly helps the small guy. I have been close enough to see how things can and often go wrong.

Also I don't agree that one has to have experience a particular thing to be able to see if its done wrong. If you ignore all feedback for lack of credentials you miss a lot of important things - of course you yourself in the end decide how much weight you give to this or that information. This in my opinion goes without saying when asking for advice on open internet forum.

But all in all I Didn't mean to attack your person at all. Just got a feeling that eagerness (which is of value) is ignoring undesired information.

I really think you should try to address the other points in my previous post - now the important parts got totally skipped.

 

Also I visited a farming show the other day - here is a picture of a small electrically driven mobile sawmill - priced around 5,000 euros in Finland which probably means 3,500 in UK or Germany.

You can get longer beds for longer logs and while they are not super fast for building boats they should be plenty quick.

 

I think you missed my point.

You are thinking about Vertical development. Basically it has to come from above, rain on you, manna from heaven.
Such is the typical thinking in South America Africa and the Middle East. We are poor because the bad government, the ******* USA, the greedy rich, the infidel next door, is stopping investment and bla bla.

However, the natural way toward prosperity is not hoping for the philanthropist rich or the socialist government to give away money, but for the "poor" to start using his head and building his own boat using the expertise that is freely available and resources that are a chopping ax away.
Vietnamese don't stand on the beach waiting for "investments" but they chop trees down and by hand build excellent sea worthy boats. River boats are even easier to build.
If you want to build boats to sell, and you believe there is a market for it good luck, but spare me the political BS.

 

This people on the Mecong did not cry poor and play victim because no one wanted to "invest" ...they just made thier own by hand

 

congo river

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHzYsj8rZp0

 

If the government is not afraid to let the people prosper, you will succeed. If the government is standing deliberately on the neck of free enterprise, your venture will fail and you must be aware that benevolence in government is more rare than some have come to believe.

 

Yes, go tell that to the a Congolese man who wants to transport 3 bags of maize over 1500 kilometers and make a profit of it.

Common, you simply don't have an understanding of the reality.

These poor farmers are not begging for a handout. They are just waiting for the re-establishment of the infrastructures that existed before.

And this requires outside investment.

To each his role: the farmer produces maize, the transporter provides transport, the sales-person does the marketing.


Nobody's talking about handouts, lazy farmers, or the ideologies of the global help industry.

We're just talking about reality.

A farmer who makes US$36 per year, cannot invest himself in an outboard engine or a barge that will take his 3 bags to Kinshasa.

That's a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it?

I think you're the only one politicizing things.

And Congo is not Vietnam. Okay?

 

Perhaps you should first try to learn to spell the name "Mekong" correctly, before you try to be the expert. But alright.

Can I just repeat that Vietnam is not Congo?

The Congolese do a great many things, but investing in boats and marine infrastructures is not one of them.

And I'm not talking about the Congolese per se. I'm talking about myself. I want to know whether there's a business opportunity in the fluvial transport sector in Congo.

 

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, congoriver, there's still a bit of the 'Social Darwinism' hanging around that was so popular in the Victorian Era: a belief that if people are poor, it's because they're lazy and stupid and deserve to be poor.

According to those who like to think that way, helping the poor is counterproductive because it just reinforces their lazy ways, and encourages their unfortunate tendency to breed.

No, it isn't what I believe. And I'd say most of the people who do believe it are essentially patting themselves on the back for having been born into fortunate circumstances.

 

well said Troy.

 

Neither Marco1 or I said anything at all like that. If the powers that be want to hold the people down, anyone trying to help them rise up becomes a target. The mud-slinging was uncalled for.

 

Oh, put a sock in it. I didn't notice a single word about the 'powers that be' in this post:

Or this one: