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DEVELOPMENT: Scientists Must Show the Way

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jan 6 2005 (IPS) - Scientists must move to the centre of government decision-making on development issues, says a report presented to the United Nations Thursday.

The report by an eminent group of 27 international experts following a three-year study calls for an end to the monopoly of economists as development policy advisors.

”Economic advice will always be important in guiding policy makers on developmental matters. But in a knowledge-based economy, leaders and governments increasingly need science advisors to make effective use of emerging technologies,” says report co-author Calestous Juma of Harvard University.

”Science advisors will soon be a necessary part of every presidential and executive office, including the office of the UN Secretary-General,” he added.

The report ‘Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development’ was prepared by the task force on science, technology and innovation of the United Nations Millennium Project commissioned by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to advise on implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The MDGs are quantifiable targets to be achieved by 2015. áThe Millennium Project will report later in January on strategies to reach all MDGs, including reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women.


The new report emphasises how central science is to development, and how important it must therefore be in decision-making. Science is known to have delivered faster development, says Juma. But many government structures do not reflect the significance of science-led decisions.

Many of the present structures arise from outdated economic thinking, Juma says. ”It was thought that the main sources of economic change were land, labour and capital,” he told IPS. ”But now science and technology is the driving force behind economic transition. And changes in the world of science and technology are coming much faster than in the world of land, labour and capital.”

Newly industrialised countries like Taiwan and Korea have regular and extensive mechanisms to put science at the centre of decision-making, though these activities are not documented, Juma said. ”Korea has an elaborate mechanism to keep the leadership informed over scientific developments,” he said. ”The Taiwanese leadership was closely involved in the country’s advances in the semi-conductor industry.”

India has always had a system of high-level scientific advice to the government, even though the economy did not start to grow fast until recently, he said.

”Putting science at the centre of government decision-taking is politically significant both in the developing and the industrialised world,” Juma said. ”Canada has appointed a scientific advisor to the prime minister. Ireland has a chief scientific advisor to the prime minister.”

But science can deliver quick and more dramatic benefits in the developing world. ”Jamaica has a well established mechanism of scientific advice to the prime minister’s office,” Juma said. ”In human health Jamaica now records the same longevity as industrialised countries because of the use of science in the health system.”

Chile used to depend extensively on its copper resources. ”Now it has recorded rapid growth in the last ten years,” Juma said. ”That has been driven by the Chile Foundation, a non-profit organisation that engages in technology prospecting. It brings new technology into Chile for creating new enterprises. This is a good example of the use of existing technology, and of adapting imported technology to the local economy.”

If other countries take up similar approaches, they will grow faster, Juma said. The countries that have stagnated are also the ones that use less technology, as in Africa where many depend on raw material.

”Higher growth is a significant foundation for achieving the millennium development goals,” Juma said. ”Even for basic needs technology has helped, as with the green revolution in India, the Philippines and Mexico.”

The report lists several instances where countries have progressed by placing science at the heart of decision-making.

Malaysia’s transformation from a supplier of raw materials to a diversified economy that exports electronic products and technology services is the result of such moves, the report says. Malaysia created the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) in the 1980s, and to serve national development objectives ASM works closely with the science advisor’s office in providing advice to the office of the prime minister.

To be effective science, technology, and innovation must ”become the core of industrial, agricultural, and services policies, and create explicit links between market and non-market institutions,” the report says.

The report recommends that countries create and improve science and technology advisory institutions at the national and international levels; employ institutions of higher learning such as universities directly in the service of community development; strengthen national programmes designed to promote business development; and design infrastructure projects as a way to promote technological innovation.

 
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DEVELOPMENT: Scientists Must Show the Way

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jan 6 2005 (IPS) - Scientists must move to the centre of government decision-making on development issues, says a report presented to the United Nations Thursday.
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