The Role of Ergonomics in Securing Sustainability in Developing Countries

This paper addresses the issue of sustainable effects of appropriately conceived ergonomic interventions in the industrially developing Third World. It is argued that all targets of the Rio Declaration of 1992 relative to sustainable progress (economic, social and environmental) can be addressed by appropriate ergonomic intervention where it is most needed viz. in developing regions. When economic, social and environmental conditions are poorest, small unremitting improvements have a greater impact than when conditions are optimal. The small changes ergonomists can easily effect in ameliorating working conditions in industrially developing countries can reverberate through local, regional, even national economies, and if done correctly, these effects will be culturally absorbed thereby ensuring sustainability. When an ethos for care of national resources, be they human or physical, is inculcated, the goals of the Rio Declaration are met. It is no exaggeration to assert that ergonomics, properly administrated in industrially developing countries, has a meaningful role to play in this connection.