DEVELOPMENT: More Research, Less Politics the Key – Jeffrey Sachs

By Stephen Leahy Reprint | | Print |

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Ontario, Aug 29 2002 (IPS) - Failure to invest in scientific research in developing countries is undermining efforts to fight poverty, disease and environmental destruction, says renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs.

Politics and economic policies cannot solve these problems without substantial investments in science and technology, Sachs says in an article in the Aug. 17 issue of New Scientist magazine.

Sachs, special advisor on development to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, criticises the ongoing U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) for trying to use politics to achieve sustainability.

“Politicians argue endlessly over who should bear the costs of avoiding long-term climate change,” writes the former Harvard University professor, “while neglecting the potential for new technologies to ease the harsh trade-off between current energy use and future climate change.”

There can be no real progress in economic development without a better understanding of ecology, biodiversity, soils, water or the impacts of climate change he adds.

Key agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are also wrong to believe that economic progress in the South can only come from “market forces”.

They forget that the North’s economic success is almost entirely built on science-based technologies, which Sachs points out, grew out of “huge public investments in scientific research, in higher education, and in diffusion of technologies”.

In July, Sachs circulated a paper among activists working to reform the international debt system, suggesting that debtor countries stop making interest payments and instead invest the money in health and social services, particularly the fight against HIV-AIDS.

In New Scientist, he says international support for research and technology on tropical diseases, agriculture, biodiversity, and preservation of ecosystems is minuscule. For example, while malaria accounts for three per cent of the world’s disease burden, it receives less than two-tenths of one percent of the world’s investment in biomedical research.

The lack of money-making potential from this research for private firms means public money must be spent on it, he adds.

Investments will also be needed in tropical agriculture, since advances in temperate zone agriculture can rarely be applied in the South.

While a network of tropical agricultural research units – the Consultative Group for International Research (CGIAR) – exists, it is woefully underfunded, says Sachs. One U.S. company, Monsanto, spends 600 million dollars annually on research, while CGIAR receives 350 million dollars, only part of that for research.

Leading scientists and science organisations are spreading the same message in Johannesburg.

Oregon State marine ecologist, Jane Lubchenco, calls for research into “sustainability science”. “We are currently destroying the life systems of the planet,” says Lubchenco, incoming president of the Paris-based International Council for Science (ICSU).

The ICSU is also committed to find ways that Western scientists can help bolster research in developing countries, where local knowledge and scientific input into sustainability issues is often lacking.

The message may be getting through. The secretary-general of the WSSD told delegates this week at the Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation Science that technology should be placed at the heart of policies to promote sustainable development.

Closing the growing knowledge gap requires increased efforts to link scientific activity in the developed and developing worlds, and strengthened scientific and technological capacity in developing countries, said Nitin Desai..

The forum was organised by the South African government as a parallel event to the WSSD.

But Sachs strongly cautions against waiting around for scientists to make new breakthroughs. Much more can be done with existing technologies right now, he says. Conservation, nature refuges and sustainable agriculture practices can be applied today. Millions of people could be saved from infectious diseases with more foreign investment.

“If everyone in the rich world gave 10 dollars a year – that would be 10 billion dollars. With that, we could tackle the AIDS epidemic. We can afford that commitment,” Sachs told a Daily Summit reporter at the WSSD this week.

“I want accountability from the rich world. I want it to match action with its promises, its spin and its rhetoric. There’s one thing I understand as an economist – real change will need money.”