Working together to reduce energy poverty in Timor-Leste with environmentally sustainable community-based economic development: A transnational developmental social work approach

Abstract

This article discusses the social development practices of an international collaboration working to reduce energy poverty through the provision of household solar lighting for Indigenous people living in remote communities in the Remexio district in Timor-Leste. The article discusses some of the findings of a practice-based study that uses collaborative inquiry to analyse the working model of ‘Lampu Diak’, the name of the solar lighting project, and its impacts on the health and well-being of local people and the communities in which they live. Underpinned by a practice-based sociomaterial approach, the analysis characterises the Lampu Diak project as a heterogeneous and distributed network. It discusses four of the developmental social work practices that sustain the project, with a particular emphasis on the introduction of clean, affordable, sustainable solar lighting and the associated ‘common funds’. Common funds are informal microcredit schemes managed by community-based self-help groups. The article explores the potential affordances, benefits and pitfalls of common funds and the unanticipated ways in which they continue to unfold and extend the Lampu Diak project. The article contributes an example of how a village-to-village transnational collaboration practises developmental social work in a particular context.

Keywords

Developmental social work energy poverty heterogenous networks micro-economic interventions social development practices sociomaterial approaches transnational community-based partnerships

Introduction

The challenges of sustainability are often entangled with the health, well-being and lifestyles of all those living in the world’s economically disenfranchised, poor communities. This article investigates the social development practices of an international collaboration working to reduce energy poverty through the provision of household solar lighting to Indigenous people living in remote communities in the Remexio district in Timor-Leste. It takes up the call by Patel and Hochfeld (2012) for research that articulates the practical applications of developmental social work approaches in different settings, and its contribution to ‘solving practical development problems and issues facing societies’ (p. 699).

The partnership project that is the focus of this article is called ‘Lampu Diak’. Lampu Diak translates as ‘good light’ in Tetun, the national language of Timor-Leste. Underpinned by a practice-based sociomaterial approach (Orlikowski, 2007, 2010) to social development, the Lampu Diak project is described as a distributed heterogeneous network (Lovell, 2015). This network has five main components: (1) the design of site-specific solar lighting technology; (2) training of local technicians in the assembly, installation and maintenance of the lighting systems; (3) community-based committees that manage the Lampu Diak project in each suko (village); (4) a community-contribution fund for system maintenance and the microeconomic development aspects of the project; and (5) fundraising and community education based in Australia.

Social development is defined by Midgley (1995) as ‘a process of planned change designed to promote the well-being of the population as a whole in conjunction with a dynamic process of economic development’ (p. 250). Accordingly, a social development approach offers a good fit for this project as it extends social work practice to include economic and environmental justice and provides a means for social work to contribute to ‘eradicating poverty and promoting social and economic equality in a sustainable manner’ (Lombard and Twikirize, 2014: 318).

The Lampu Diak project is a transnational collaboration between the Kangaroo Valley–Remexio Partnership (KVRP), the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) based in Melbourne Australia, the Centro Nacional de Emprego e Formação Profissional (CNEFP) – an employment and professional training organisation in Dili, Timor-Leste, and communities in Remexio. Practice-based, collaborative inquiry was used to review the implementation of the Lampu Diak, investigate Indigenous people’s experience of the Lampu Diak model, and identify factors critical to its success and practices to improve the project.

This article is structured as follows. First, the practice-based, sociomaterial approach that underpins the description and analysis of the Lampu Diak project is introduced. Second, the issue of energy poverty in Timor-Leste is discussed. Third, the study sites, research methodology and data gathering methods are outlined. Next, the Lampu Diak project is analysed using a practice-based, sociomaterial approach and then some of the social development practices evident in the analysis of the field work data are discussed. These social development practices include the provision of affordable clean lighting; training, skill development and employment of young people as solar technicians; and ‘common funds’ – informal microcredit schemes managed by the local community management committees in each suko. Finally, the article articulates the contributions of an informal, long-term, village-to-village transnational collaboration as an example of practising developmental social work across borders and boundaries marked by inequalities and cultural differences.

Theoretical frame: A practice-based sociomaterial approach

Practice-based studies comprise a diverse body of work that has developed explanations of social, cultural and material phenomena based on the notion of practices (Barad, 2007; Latour, 2005; Schatzki, 2010). Although the ‘turn to practice’ is prominent in fields such as organisation studies, healthcare and education, surprisingly, practice theory and studies are scarce in the social work literature. Practice-based theorising employs a range of research traditions including, among others, actor-network theory, activity theory and feminist new materialism. In these diverse research traditions, practice is understood to be collective, emergent, material and more-than-human. Practices encompass interactions of doings, sayings and relatings amid people, things and sites (Kemmis et al., 2012). What all of these perspectives share is a focus on materials as dynamic and entangled with human activity in everyday practices. Sociomaterial accounts (Orlikowski, 2010) examine what Barad (2007) describes as intra-actions of heterogeneous elements of nature, technologies, humanity, and materials of all kinds. A practice-based sociomaterial approach suggests for this study a focus on the local, situated, emergent, spatially and temporally extended ways in which all involved with the Lampu Diak project work to reduce energy poverty and enhance health and well-being with Indigenous communities living in Remexio. This theoretical approach warns against viewing Lampu Diak as a stable, technology solution that can be installed, monitored and evaluated against pre-determined performance expectations and design specifications.

The issue: Energy poverty in Timor-Leste

Timor-Leste, Asia’s youngest nation, is one of the world’s poorest countries and the second most oil-dependent nation on the planet (Scheiner, 2016). Despite rapid economic growth, high unemployment and poverty persist. Human and food security remain fragile and continue to hamper people’s efforts to lead the lives that matter to them (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2019).

In many rural areas there is no electricity, with households relying on candles and polluting kerosene lamps for lighting and firewood for cooking. Poor access to affordable, reliable power contributes to poverty, poor health and low living standards in rural areas (Asian Development Bank, 2015). Access to electricity and poverty are closely linked, with countries that have the lowest levels of electrification also having the highest levels of poverty (Kumar, 2011).

Timor-Leste’s government, despite impressive progress and plans to electrify much of the country, acknowledges that 20 percent of the population won’t have access to a centralised grid in the next 20 years as they live in sparsely populated mountainous areas that are difficult to access and connect (ATA, 2015; Gajic and Greenwood, 2017).

Similar to other parts of Timor-Leste without access to electricity, households in Remexio rely on kerosene for lighting. The light provided by a kerosene lamp is inefficient, dim, and also dangerous and unhealthy. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2009, 2016) has determined that individuals breathing kerosene fumes and soot inhale the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. WHO (2016) estimates that every year there are 1.6 million deaths due to indoor air pollution – that is one life lost every 20 seconds. In Timor-Leste, acute respiratory infection, influenza and pneumonia kill more than 1200 children each year (Moss and McGann, 2011).

A typical Remexio household uses their kerosene lamp for 3–4 hours per day, with weekly fuel consumption of about 1 litre (ATA, 2015). At this level of usage, families can spend up to 40 percent of their income on kerosene (UNDP, 2019).

Consequently, the members of KVRP from Remexio suggested that working together to improve access to safe and affordable energy would contribute to a brighter future for people living in the remote sukos of the sub-district.

Study sites and methodology

The following section describes the study sites, research methodology, data collection methods and analysis. The analysis draws from Lampu Diak data collected in Timor-Leste and in Australia between 2015 and 2017.

Kangaroo Valley–Remexio partnership

KVRP is the transnational village-to-village collaboration that initiated this project and established the partnership with ATA to bring Lampu Diak to Remexio. KVRP is a transnational, community-based, not-for-profit organisation.

Destruction and conflict followed in the wake of the Indonesian withdrawal from Timor-Leste in September 1999. In 2000, the Kangaroo Valley–Remexio partnership was forged, born out of a response to assist affected communities in Remexio (KVRP documentation). The partnership is comprised of a group of residents from the village of Kangaroo Valley situated on the south east coast of Australia, and the communities of Remexio in the district of Aileu, Timor-Leste. It is one of a number of place-based relationships that make up the Australia Timor-Leste Friendship Network (Martires et al., 2019). The KVRP utilises a ‘bottom up’ or ‘grass roots’ approach to working with the scattered communities of Remexio and fosters long-term relationships between people living in Kangaroo Valley and people living in Remexio (KVRP documentation).

Methodology

A practice-based approach using collaborative inquiry was used (Bray et al., 2000; Heron and Reason, 2008; Kemmis, 2009) to access the data and actively involve all stakeholders in the research project. One of the implications of this approach is that the primary unit of analysis is not independent actors and objects with inherent boundaries and properties, but sociomaterial phenomena that are produced in practice.

Collaborative inquiry is commonly employed in research with non-government organisations and in the field of international development (Cousins et al., 2012; Kindon et al., 2007). It is an approach sensitive to, and inclusive of, multiple stakeholders and involves individual and collective exploration of experiences and critical reflection on practices and processes to enhance collective endeavours (Patterson and Goulter, 2015). Such an approach is particularly suited to this international project as it stresses the importance of context and culture.

Data-gathering methods

Within the collaborative inquiry, multiple mixed methods were incorporated for accessing a variety of data including the following:

a survey of households using the Lampu Diak solar lighting (133 surveys completed in Tetun and translated into English for data entry into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS));

semi-structured interviews with community members, management committee members, solar technicians, ATA and KVRP volunteers (50 participants); the interviews conducted in Tetun and translated in situ were recorded and transcribed as were the interviews conducted in English;

observations of Lampu Diak training, installations, usage, and local committee meetings’

group discussions with KVRP members, members of ATA and local management committee members (40 participants); the group discussions conducted in Tetun and translated in situ were recorded and transcribed, as were the group discussions conducted in English;

documentation, photographs and videos about the Lampu Diak project.

These participatory methods were chosen because they provide a means to ensure the experiences and perspectives of both local people and practitioners from all partner organisations are included, thus enabling multiple lenses on practices and experiences of all involved in the Lampu Diak project.

Data analysis

Quantitative data from the surveys of households using the Lampu Diak solar systems were analysed using SPSS. Qualitative data from interviews, observations, group discussions and surveys were collated and analysed to identify dominant themes and trends. The researcher initially coded the data using words from the texts, and then developed more ‘abstract’ codes to arrive at the themes (Hesse-Biber, 2007).

Overview of the Lampu Diak project – a heterogenous network

Observations, interviews and group discussions demonstrate how the Lampu Diak project, rather than being a stable technology that is implemented and evaluated, is a transnational, dynamic, fragile heterogenous network (Lovell, 2015). Heterogenous networks are defined by Law (1992) as ‘patterned networks of heterogeneous materials . . . composed not only of people, but also of machines, animals, texts, money, architectures’ (p. 2).

The Lampu Diak network, including its human, other-than-human and material elements, is represented in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Lampu Diak Project – a transnational heterogenous network.

At the centre of the network are the scattered communities of Remexio. Each suko has a local management committee that manages the running of Lampu Diak, including facilitating the decision-making processes for deciding the order of priority for installation of the solar lights, collecting monthly payments and maintaining financial records, and overseeing repairs and maintenance. Two technicians from each aldea (satellite village) in each suko were trained in the installation, maintenance and repairs of the solar systems. KVRP fund raising is used to subsidise the cost of the solar systems and fund ATA trainers’ travel and costs to and in Timor-Leste. KVRP members provide mentoring and training to Lampu Diak committee members in governance and bookkeeping associated. ATA is responsible for designing the Lampu Diak system and works with CNEFP to train the local technicians in the installation and maintenance of the solar lighting systems. The Lampu Diak system is not static, rather it is constantly being developed and refined. The latest version of the solar system is shown in Figure 1.

A practice-based sociomaterial approach illustrates the ongoing work required to build a solar lighting scheme and keep the heterogenous network together, for there were several unexpected issues that arose as one or more vital components failed to function as planned. For instance, an unanticipated actor that has had a significant impact on the evolution of the Lampu Diak system is the mobile phone (see Figure 1). When the first systems were installed, householders cut the cables so that they could also use them to charge their mobile phones. Accordingly, ATA engineers modified the design to incorporate a mobile phone charger (see Figure 1). This is a good example of why attention to place and local sociotechnical context is important in tackling energy poverty.

Another actor that had an unexpected and unwelcome impact on the smooth running of the solar lighting system are mice, who enjoy chewing the cables (see Figure 1). Mice transformed what was expected to be a permanent and stable part of the network into an aspect that is prone to failure and in need of ongoing repairs.

A key player in the heterogenous network is a local community leader, the Remexio sub-district priest and an active member of KVRP. He provides vital leadership and information to the community members about the Lampu Diak project. This community leader is also instrumental in creating community buy-in for extending the common fund to establish a community-based self-help economy in Remexio.

Summary of survey data outlining the demographic characteristics of households

Households involved in the Lampu Diak project completed surveys to assess the impact of solar lighting on their health, well-being and lifestyles. A total of 133 respondents completed the survey.

Table 1 shows participants’ demographic and household characteristics. Both men (54.2%) and women (45.8%) completed the survey. On average, respondents reported eight persons living in their household.

Table 1.

Demographic and household characteristics.

	n	%
Gender
Male	71	54.2
Female	60	45.8
Household
Number people under 18 years	Median = 4.21, SD = 2.02
Number people over 18 years	Mean = 3.66, SD = 1.93
Total number of people	Mean = 7.79, SD = 2.38
Suko
Fatarasa	44	33.6
Tueletequeo	33	25.2
Fatabloko	30	22.9
Suku Luirai	24	18.3
Aldea
Roluli	21	16.0
Rileu	19	14.5
Fakalaun	18	13.7
Manutane	16	12.2
Caitaso	14	10.7
Samlete	12	9.2
Liquisa	7	5.3
Berelisu	6	4.6
Remerhei	6	4.6
Laraluha	6	4.6
Lilitei	4	3.1
Cotemori	2	1.5

SD: standard deviation.

One in five respondents had six persons under 18 years of age living in their house. The large number of children and young people living in Remexio households is clearly demonstrated in these results.

Discussion of social development practices

Four of the social development practices identified in the analysis of the fieldwork data as key to sustaining this transnational collaborative project and heterogenous network include the following:

the provision of solar lighting that is safe, affordable and sustainable;

the training and employment of local technicians in the assembly, installation, maintenance and repair of lighting systems;

the suko-based management committees and common funds to facilitate system maintenance and the community economic development aspects of the project;

the community education and fundraising based in Australia.

These social development practices are underpinned by KVRP’s commitment to participation, partnerships and self-determination – premises central to developmental social work (Lombard and Twikirize, 2014; Midgley and Conley, 2010; Patel, 2005).

The following sections discuss the first three of these social development practices. KVRP’s community education and fundraising practices, although essential to the success of the project, are beyond the scope of this article, which is confined to the social development practices located in Timor-Leste.

Provision of safe, affordable and sustainable solar lighting

The statistical results from the survey provide an overview of the perceptions of households from four sukos of Remexio in relation to the core social development strategy – the provision of clean, affordable, sustainable lighting. The data outlined below demonstrate that Lampu Diak has significant positive impacts on the health, well-being and lifestyles of people living in Remexio.

Table 2 summarises the installation and use of solar lighting. The vast majority use their solar lights every day . As shown in Table 2, a large proportion of respondents used kerosene to light their home before installing solar lights (92.4%). Since the installation of solar lighting, the majority of households (90.1%) no longer use kerosene to light their home.

Table 2.

Household lighting.

	n	%
How many years have you had solar lighting in your home?	Mean = 4.40, SD = 1.31
Under 5 years solar	72	55.0
5 years or more solar	59	45.0
How often do you use the solar lights?
Every day	128	97.7
Few times per week	2	1.5
Once or twice	1	0.8
Before we had solar lights we used kerosene to light our home
Strongly disagree	1	0.8
Disagree	3	2.3
Neutral	6	4.6
Agree	1	0.8
Strongly agree	120	91.6
Since getting solar lights we don’t use kerosene to light our home
Strongly disagree	3	2.3
Disagree	2	1.5
Neutral	8	6.1
Agree	11	8.4
Strongly agree	107	81.7

SD: standard deviation.

This huge shift away from the use of kerosene has many benefits, especially on the health of women and children. Representative comments from householders include

My children’s eyes don’t hurt anymore at night and with Lampu Diak, I don’t have to wipe the soot of my children’s face in the morning.

The experience of people living in Remexio is in accord with research demonstrating that health-related consequences are greatly reduced when kerosene fuel is replaced with small-scale solar systems (Esper et al., 2013; Mills, 2012).

The Lampu Diak systems also have significant impacts on what families can do in the evenings. Figure 2 shows that for the majority of households more cooking, socialising with friends and family, household activities, school work, and work take place in the evenings since the installation of the solar lights.

Figure 2.

Increase in evening activities since getting solar lights.

Increased ability for children to study longer hours and spend more time with their parents and siblings on educational activities was a dominant theme in the fieldwork data. A mother comments on these educational benefits:

Life is better with Lampu Diak . . . My family is safer. The children can study at night and their eyes don’t hurt anymore while they study.

The impacts of the Lampu Diak project on children studying in the evenings is in contrast to some past research done on solar lantern versus solar home system programmes in Timor-Leste. Bond et al. (2010) conducted surveys of households with both working and broken solar home systems and found there was not a significant difference between the hours of study undertaken by children in the households.

In addition to school work, the potential work and economic benefits are illustrated in the following comment:

It is so helpful. Our children can do their homework at night. But it’s not just for the children, with the Lampu Diak we can make Tais [traditional weaving] at night. We also make carpeting at night.

Importantly, the solar lights enabled families and friends to socialise, make music and play games together at night. The following representative comments points to the unanticipated community-wide social activities enabled by solar lighting:

Lampu Diak is so good for ceremonies and parties. We collect the lights and bring them together to light the ceremony. It is wonderful! Afterwards we take them back to our houses and put them up again.

Deploying the technicians to dismantle the solar lights for community festivities and then re-instal them after the event is considered ‘misuse’ of the Lampu Diak by ATA. This practice demonstrates how solar lighting projects emerge in unexpected and complicated ways. They cannot be implemented neatly, but instead reframe expected ways of behaving to become different from the planned implementation.

Respondents were also asked to rate their agreement with their perception of the change in safety, pollution and quality of life since the solar lighting was installed in their homes. The results are illustrated in Figure 3, which shows that for the majority of participants their quality of life has improved, they feel safer walking around their house and their homes are less polluted.

Figure 3.

Safety, pollution and quality of life.

In relation to safety, many women commented on feeling less vulnerable with the solar lights, for example ‘We feel safe with the lights . . . without the Lampu Diak we are not so secure’. The increase in women feeling sexually safer with solar lighting resulted in another unexpected practice in which households would routinely leave the solar lights on all night. This unanticipated practice threatened to unravel the Lampu Diak as householders bypassed the regulator and drained the batteries to keep the lights on. As is shown in Figure 1, ATA design engineers, key actors in the Lampu Diak heterogenous network, responded by incorporating a night light into the latest versions of the solar lighting system. This light can be used all night without draining the batteries. The implementation of Lampu Diak highlights the importance of emotions, feelings and non-economic factors such as gender in sustainable energy technologies and schemes.

The following comment from one of the community leaders sums up the overall response to Lampu Diak:

The Lampu Diak has made a great difference to our lives from before with the kerosene. So, for me to compare the kerosene with the Lampu Diak. The Lampu Diak is more easy and so helpful for us, because we just need solar, the sun. If the sun is good, we don’t need to go to Dili to buy the kerosene. Before if we don’t buy the kerosene, we have no light. But with the Lampu Diak we don’t have to go all the way to Dili and spend our money on kerosene.

These cost benefits of Lampu Diak show that the majority of respondents spend less on lighting their home since they received solar lighting (78.7%). A very small number of households disagreed that they spend less on lighting since receiving the solar lighting (strongly disagree n = 1, 0.8%, disagree n = 3, 2.3%). Nearly three-quarters of respondents experience the cost per month of the Lampu Diak as affordable (73.3%). Approximately one in seven respondents (n = 18, 13.8%) disagreed that the cost per month of the Lampu Diak is affordable.

In their comments, many householders identify the economic value of the Lampu Diak, remarking on the comparative difference between the cost of kerosene and solar. For instance, this sentiment is clearly expressed by one of the research participants:

The solar light is good for us. It is less expensive than the kerosene. We used to pay $10 and we had to also pay to go and get the kerosene.

Another man concurs, explaining:

With the kerosene the money is gone. With the Lampu Diak we keep the money.

This analysis illustrates the fragility of the Lampu Diak as a distributed heterogeneous network (see Figure 1). It demonstrates how Lampu Diak includes both human and other-than-human actors who shape and are shaped by the action that emerges in complicated and often unexpected ways. Furthermore, Lampu Diak shows what happens when key actors (technologies and people) that are assisting in ensuring the network ‘hangs together’ fail to function as planned, resulting in unravelling and difficulty in the solar system operating as planned.

Local people trained and employed as solar technicians

Another key social development practice incorporated into the Lampu Diak project is a community- managed and -maintained programme through which 50 solar technicians in Remexio have been trained to instal and maintain solar power. Each suko is comprised of three to four aldeas, and they each nominate two people to be trained to assemble, install and maintain the solar lights. The training is provided by volunteer engineers from ATA in partnership with CNEFP, a vocational education and training institution based in Dili, Timor-Leste, and KVRP. The local communities in Remexio have overwhelmingly chosen young men to be trained as their solar technicians, but two women have also been trained. Some of the solar technicians have undergone further training in Dili and have completed formal qualifications in renewable energy assembly, installation and maintenance. Accordingly, this developmental micro-economic intervention of solar installations provides a basis for an industry in Remexio and in Timor-Leste more broadly, providing training and jobs to local people. The skilled jobs that have been created include trainers, solar system assembly, solar installers and solar maintenance (documentation ATA, 2015).

Suko-based management committees and ‘common funds’

An integral aspect of the Lampu Diak project is the establishment of a community management committee in each suko to oversee the solar lighting installations, maintenance and repairs, and manage the ‘common fund’. Common funds are informal microcredit schemes managed by community-based self-help groups (Hennink et al., 2013; Venkatesh, 2009). The community management committee is responsible for collecting and keeping a record of the $10 that each household pays for installation of Lampu Diak and the $2 they pay each month for the system’s upkeep (service and replacement parts). The committee is also responsible for organising the purchase of replacement parts and for paying the local technicians for repairs of the solar lighting systems. Social work practitioners from KVRP provide mentoring and work alongside people in each suko to organise the governance of the Lampu Diak project and establish the constitution and working ways of the management committees. This includes establishing the financial record-keeping system for maintaining the accounts for the Lampu Diak common fund.

There were many challenges and difficulties in the ongoing working of the funds established in each suko. Access to spare parts for the local technicians to effectively maintain the Lampu Diak systems was difficult, especially in the first few years that the project operated in Remexio. This lack of access to spare parts meant that repairs were delayed, resulting in some households being reluctant to continue to make the regular $2 per month payment to the fund.

Due to the communities’ past experience in which people lost their savings deposited in banks when the Portuguese withdrew from Timor-Leste and Indonesia invaded, many people of Remexio were suspicious and reluctant to open bank accounts to administer the Lampu Diak funds. Accordingly, large sums of money accumulated and were kept ‘under the bed’ in the treasurers’ homes.

Despite these difficulties, the money in some of the sukos’ fund grew until there were more funds than needed for maintaining the Lampu Diak systems. An unanticipated and unplanned extension of the common fund began to emerge as local community leaders realised the potential of the common fund to stimulate community-level, economic development.

A respected community leader from across the sub-district of Remexio explains,

I feel that economically we, the community are very surprised, we’re surprised with the big number of the money. Without the presence of the solar system, we don’t know that with $2.00 per month from each family, we can guarantee there will be very big money for the community. So, myself, I learn many things from this experience. We can choose to leverage the money, to make a small community economy that can grow and benefit all the families.

These comments demonstrate the premise that learning occurs when a difference is perceived, and it is this news of difference that makes a difference (Bateson, 1972) in community leaders’ perceptions of the possibilities for community economic development afforded by the Lampu Diak fund.

In response to the community leaders’ vision, a Remexio-wide meeting was held during which the Lampu Diak management committees from all the sukos discussed and determined to leverage the Lampu Diak fund to develop a self-help community economy. Social work practitioners from KVRP who participated in the community meeting are working with the communities to extend the Lampu Diak project to include an informal, membership-based savings and no-interest loans scheme. In this way, the potential of the developmental social work practice of micro-economic interventions for poverty alleviation (Patel and Hochfeld, 2012) is being incorporated into the Lampu Diak project through the transnational village-to-village relationship.

Common funds

Microcredit self-help groups are described as

registered or unregistered groups of micro entrepreneurs having homogenous social and economic background voluntarily coming together to save small amounts regularly to mutual agree to contribute to a common fund and to meet their emergency needs on a mutual help basis. The group members use collective wisdom and peer pressure to ensure proper end use of funds and timely repayment. (Venkatesh, 2009: 133)

A distinguishing feature of a common fund is that it is generated and governed within the local community and does not depend on a credit organisation or a larger sponsoring non-government or government agency to provide financial capital to establish the fund. Accordingly, common funds are informal and depend more on local relationships than large microfinance programmes, such as the well-known Grameen Bank which has millions of members in Bangladesh and is a registered, non-profit bank (Midgley, 2008).

After a household/member has contributed for 2 months, they can apply to borrow from the fund. The members continue to pay their $2 contribution and also pay an additional monthly or weekly amount to pay off their loan. In this way, the more members that borrow and are in debt to the fund, the better the common fund works, because as members begin paying off their loans, more money becomes available to lend. If a household chooses to leave the fund they receive the amount they have saved through their monthly contribution to the fund.

Benefits of extending the Lampu Diak common fund to incorporate self-help microcredit

The remote communities of Remexio are made up of mostly subsistence farmers, and common funds enable access to loans without having to pay interest on the loan. Through the common fund community members enable one another to access sums of money that they would be unable to access alone or through the formal credit system. As common funds are locally administered and controlled, they can be tailored to the requirements of the members. For example, the fund can decide who is eligible to join, what the amount of the regular contributions will be, and how much members can borrow.

Common funds are based on relationships, which minimises defaults on loans (Venkatesh, 2009). Community members recognise that repaying their loan means someone else is given the same opportunity they were afforded. If a member does not pay back their loan, the loss is distributed across the whole fund rather than being born by an individual.

The common fund enables communities to collectively develop their local economy and build enterprises. For example, a group of women from one suko make cassava chips and package, distribute and sell them in the capital Dili.

One of the features of common funds that is most beneficial to the well-being of local people is that they can enhance a sense of belonging. Participation in the common fund enhances local peoples’ associational participation, expands networks and intensifies social ties (Davidson and Sanyal, 2017).

Pitfalls and challenges

Although the experience of the Lampu Diak project has been predominantly positive for all the partners involved in the collaborative, there are challenges and pitfalls evident in the analysis of the fieldwork data. A critical distinguishing feature of the Lampu Diak project is its local governance. It is this feature that generates the possibility that decisions can take place in the presence of those who will bear the consequences. Being face-to-face means accountability, and responsibility is always inside connections and multidirectional relationships, a much riskier and demanding situation than accountability or answering to a fixed set of procedures at a distance. This feature means that wider conflicts between community members may impact adversely on the effective running of the project.

This local governance and accompanying community-based management committee and common fund that are integral to the Lampu Diak project require ongoing work and diligence to keep records, maintain the systems, enable the fund to grow and ensure accountability between all members. Committee members require support, mentoring and training to effectively manage the project and extend their accounting and governance skills. The criteria for approving loans and for the repayment of loans need to be regularly negotiated and agreed by all project participants.

In addition, for the remote communities of Remexio where private transport is almost non-existent and there are no local banks, the Lampu Diak project requires a secure place to keep the funds as well as access to and willingness to travel and use a bank. Reluctance to trust and commit funds to a bank has been a major challenge to the operation of the common funds in Remexio.

Concluding discussion

By building on historic good will, community-level relationships and enacting social development practices and strategies like the Lampu Diak partnership project, the people of Remexio and Kangaroo Valley work across borders and boundaries marked by gross inequalities and cultural differences to build a better future together. As one member of KVRP commented, ‘if we wait for the leaders of our governments to do it, we could be waiting a very long time’.

Direct social and economic development benefits of the Lampu Diak project for people living in Remexio include increased access to study and educational opportunities with the provision of light for study and learning; increased sense of sexual safety, especially for women; health improvements with the provision of smoke- and pollution-free light; lower energy costs; and local training and employment opportunities for solar installers and maintenance technicians. The Lampu Diak project is an example of developmental social work in action in which community and social workers are directly involved in economic development that contributes to poverty alleviation (Midgley and Conley, 2010).

This article demonstrates the value of a practice-based sociomaterial approach for analysing sustainable energy technologies like the Lampu Diak systems. The contribution is twofold. First, this approach encourages sustainable solar lighting projects to recognise the value of developmental social work practices to the success of such endeavours. Social development practices that the participants articulate as critical to the success of the Lampu Diak project include

local governance and community ownership in which decision-making rests with those most affected by the outcomes of decisions;

encouraging personal empowerment and control by community members over their own lives;

the ongoing development of local structures and processes by which groups can meet their own needs (Kenny, 2017; Onyx et al., 2018).

A practice-based sociomaterial approach by recognising Lampu Diak as a distributed and heterogenous network demonstrates the fragility and emergent character of sustainable technology schemes. It illustrates how such a transnational project requires ongoing work as key actors (people and technologies) fail to function as planned and unravelling of some aspects of the project occurs.

The article illustrates how the emergent and situated character of social development practices catalysed the Lampu Diak project to expand in unanticipated and unplanned ways, enabling the emergence of a community economy that has the potential to make a significant difference to peoples’ capacities to live a life that matters to them. Integrating a common fund and community economy into the solar lighting project also has the potential to strengthen the viability and sustainability of the solar lighting project.

Second, a practice-based sociomaterial approach is useful to developmental social work because it expands the subject of social work research beyond individuals, organisations and institutions to encompass sociomaterialities such as technologies, gadgets, material sites of production and environments (Lovell, 2015). This conceptualisation emphasises for social work how communities involve not only human actors and social relations, but also artefacts and other-than-human beings. Materials – things that matter – are often missing from accounts of social work practice as most research tends to privilege the intentional human subject.

The practices of KVRP encompass what Patel (2005) identifies as the aims of a social development approach: working to achieve social and economic justice through strengthening people, and their communities’ livelihood capabilities; an emphasis on partnerships and collaboration with a range of actors, promoting social solidarity and active social citizenship, and adopting a pro-poor approach to welfare and service delivery. Accordingly, this article makes a contribution to research in developmental social work by articulating the practical application of a social development approach in an international, informal village-to-village partnership.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Lynne Keevers

Author biography

Lynne Keevers is Associate Professor in Social Work at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She has a professional and research interest in social justice, with a focus on how it is practised in third sector organisations.

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