Sustainable development of isolated communities and the role of solar technology: The case of Nacunan, Santa Rosa, Mendoza, Argentina.

The rural isolated communities living in desert arid zones in Argentina usu ally lack public services, especially energy, and they do not have many cho ices to be assisted and/or aided by Governments. Solar technology is a feas ible solution, but it is necessary to apply an appropriate methodology to t ransfer this technology. The methodology should be based on human promotion , which involves instruction, training and community participation so as to enable them to reach their own developmental process. The role of the reas earcher while implementing this methodology is to support the community by being a facilitator of the community process. In this paper, the case of Na cunan, a rural isolated community in Central Western Argentina is presented . The people from Nacunan have enthusiastically participated in the solutio n of one of their specific problem: energy supply for cooking. They accepte d the solar cooker, starting in this way, the process of getting sustainabl e energy. This represented their first approach towards community sustainab le development.