EFD is a charity organisation, with innovation as ta primary tool. EFD starts where other aid organisations ends. We are working on practical solutions to real problems in the areas of water and sanitation, health, energy and education. We do it for the long term to improve the living standards of people in vulnerable areas and to thus reducing the need for outside help. EFD stands for Engineering for Development. It is both our name and what we do.
Our Mission
Our daily mission is to create and implement concrete aid efforts that increase quality of life for vulnerable people worldwide. But at the same time also to raise awareness. Through concrete actions on site, we can give and spread awareness. The realisation that together we can transform a problematic situation into something better. It leads to awareness. The awareness that we as individuals can influence. This awareness is the first step towards involvement, incentives for action and positive change. Commitment is a prerequisite for improving the quality of life for all humans on earth.
EFD want to create energy to a commitment that spreads and bridges hopelessness.
What we do
We start where other aid organizations ends. Our ambition is based on long-term aims to implement concrete aid efforts that enhance quality of life for people in vulnerable areas worldwide. Specifically, we are working on initiatives in four key sectors: water &sanitation, health, education and energy. On site, we examine how we, together with locals, can create a commitment and a positive development.
The goal is a sustainable and well functioning economy where local people’s own potential is utilized to meet local needs. Where there is culture and infrastructure to guarantee water & sanitation, health and energy, there is also opportunity for those who educate themselves to remain in and benefit the local economy.
Water & Sanitation
Potable water is a prerequisite for functioning agriculture and human life. Of all the water our planet can hold only 2% is drinkable. Moreover, it is very unevenly distributed. Natural water resources are threatened by congestion and intense industrial exploitation. Wars and natural disasters breaks down the infrastructure necessary to generate drinking water in modern societies.
Our project consists of long-term initiatives on water and sanitation. The goal is that urgent efforts should not have to arise and that a healthy local population itself, thanks to education and access to energy can guarantee its own water supply.
Health
Efforts around health are usually aimed at promoting physical wellbeing. Due to the troubled situation in the world there is obviously a great need for urgent action. But there are more non-urgent needs that risks becoming urgent if no action takes place.
Our health perspective is long term, and our efforts have a broader objective than physical well-being. We also work with mental health and hygiene aspects. A long-term functioning of the health sector requires good functionality of other key sectors of society. The goal is a humane and self-sustaining economy, working with education, work and opportunities to build a future. Where trained local people should be able to meet not only local health needs, but also local needs in water and sanitation, energy, and education.
Education
Education is a basic prerequisite for people to be able to get from poverty and difficult living conditions to a situation where life takes a more positive direction. A common problem in poor areas is that trained human resources cannot be translated into the local economy. Instead, they are forced to get out of there, and the local community continues to stagnate.
Education is essential to create good living conditions and the opportunity to build the future. Here, our long-term synergy effect of our projects become most evident: Trained people are needed to ensure water and sanitation, health, and access to energy. When these four key sectors are working, we have a sustainable and edifying local economy.
Energy
Many communities still do not have steady access to electricity. Others are victims of war or natural disasters that hit infrastructure. For us to be able to work effectively with notably health, water and sanitation, access to energy is a fundamental prerequisite.
There are no ready-made solutions to suit all situations. We are looking for innovative solutions that are tailored for each scenario and situation. Long-term functionality requires healthy and educated people with local access to water and sanitation.
Efforts for long-term development
We hope and believe that our work shows situations can be changed. That what we are doing creates ripples in the water, creates a motion, a momentum that makes us all dare to get involved in positive change. Changes that have a bearing in the long term and in a broad way. A change that results in an acceptable quality of life for everyone, everywhere. A change so radical that EFD is no longer needed.
We have expertise in these areas and use proven methods to implement concrete actions that bring results, both in the short and long term. Where the local economy is not working and the local population are continually dependent on external aid, a cycle continues as the need for acute intervention increases. If people however are capable of building their society and opportunities are created to earn a living within the local economy, the risk of acute need is reduced.
Innovation and efficient processes are our main tools. These tools can be perceived as angular and abstract as the problems we face are of such an immediate human nature, but it is our belief that our process-driven approach works to maximise opportunities to reach the core of human challenges we face. The aim is to reverse the negative trends into positive developments.
Innovation
In order to work with innovation, it is required that the right conditions exist. EFD is dependent on donations, and we have a great responsibility to invest in projects that truly are feasible. We have gathered our criteria for working with innovation in a model.
Each innovation must first and foremost be based on a need and a demand from a human perspective. It must therefore address a real problem whose solution makes a difference.
It must also be technically feasible. So we need to ensure that the knowledge and the resources we have available can be mobilised.
Finally, we need to know that it provides a good return on the basis of effort. We do a commercial evaluation to ensure that the donations we have been entrusted to work with, actually are used responsibly in the best way.
LEAN for best possible outcome
We work with a focus on cost efficiency with a starting point in Lean philosophy. Ultimately, we seek to take advantage of all our working force collective knowledge and in a learning process maximise results and minimise problems and resource waste. The focus is constantly on maximising results by working smarter, not by working more.
Local know-how
No processes and models in the world is more important than the experience we get in different local places. Crucial to our efforts to be effective is that we have knowledge of local conditions and people in project areas. It is on site, we can identify the practical challenges and therefore we are stationing EFD staff in all priority areas we work in. A personal presence and working closely with local stakeholders is a prerequisite to assure as much knowledge as possible. When people are free to say what they need and then co-design the joint work, our efforts are both more effective and more sustainable.
