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SCIENCE: Developing Nations Urged to Join Forces in R&D

Mario Osava

ANGRA DOS REIS, Brazil, Sep 6 2006 (IPS) - Developing countries, which lack the industrialised world’s capacity for technological investment, are going to have to look to innovative solutions and collective initiatives if they expect to overcome their problems and address the basic needs of their people.

So warned India’s Science and Technology Minister, Kapil Sibal, in an address at a ministerial forum on industry financing, in which he also noted that one U.S. pharmaceutical company alone – Pfizer – spends eight billion dollars on research and development (R&D) annually, more than many of the world’s largest developing countries.

Monday’s forum, sponsored by the Third World Network of Scientific Organisations (TWNSO), was part of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) tenth general conference, held Sep. 2-6 in the Brazilian resort town of Angra dos Reis, 150 kilometres south of Rio de Janeiro.

In addition to establishing consortia to pool contributions from countries where scarce resources limit R&D, attention must be turned to “new science frontiers” such as nanotechnology, bioinformatics and new materials, and to the developing world’s major problems, such as sanitation, food security and poverty, said Sibal.

Low-cost solutions, such as using bamboo for construction, can provide viable alternatives, he said, adding that in many cases, advanced technology is not the best tool for addressing fundamental problems related to poverty. Even more so than financing, development in poor countries requires “passion and commitment,” said the minister.

Speaking to a dozen government ministers and eminent scientists, Sibal recommended that the Group of 77 (G-77) – the 131-member bloc of developing countries in the United Nations – channel financing towards solar energy, biodiversity and health.

His proposal called for each G-77 country to contribute 0.01 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to a solar-energy development initiative. Biofuels and the fight against disease such as malaria would be addressed in separate initiatives.

The financing symposium followed Sunday’s meeting of G-77 science and technology ministers, organised to foster dialogue on the challenges this sector faces in the developing South.

During the meeting, South African Minister Mosibudi Mangena announced that the G-77 and TWNSO have joined forces to create the Consortium of Science, Technology and Innovation for the South, to be based in the Italian city of Trieste where TWAS and TWNSO are headquartered. Colombian physicist Pedro Antonio Prieto received the first scientific award granted by the group.

The numerous panellists described the difficulties poor countries, especially smaller ones, face in terms of R&D financing, but also unveiled ambitious plans for the coming years.

Investment in R&D currently ranges from 0.12 percent of GDP, in Panama, to 0.87 percent in Iran. On average, the various proposals set development targets of one to two percent of GDP – similar to levels found in rich countries. Iran is aiming for nothing less than two percent by 2008, with a budget increase of “at least 15 percent for the year,” announced Minister Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi.

Cutting-edge projects were spotlighted. Brazil’s Science and Technology Minister Sergio Rezende spoke of the important role industry funding plays in bolstering research. Last year the system provided 64,700 scholarships, “20,000 more than two years before,” contributing to a 19 percent increase in doctors trained in the country.

Cuba now has 60,000 doctors, 20 times more than at the time of the 1959 revolution, and many can be found working in other developing countries around the world. Technology enables the Caribbean island nation to develop vaccines and medicine for many diseases that primarily affect the world’s poorer populations.

But the spotlight was also turned on situations such as those found in Sri Lanka, where only 0.18 percent of the country’s GDP goes towards R&D and the few local scientists are lost to emigration. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) alone employs 261 Sri Lankan scientists, said the country’s minister, Tissa Vitarana.

Small countries face particularly serious challenges in this area. For example, Panama, which has a strong banking system, had never focused on technological investment “because it was a business country,” but it changed its tune once it realised that “nothing is done without science” today, especially given the growth of the information and communications sectors, said Julio Escobar, the country’s national secretary of Science, Technology and Innovation.

The giant gap in R&D investment levels between industrialised and developing countries is found in the private sector. In the United States, the public sector earmarks around 0.5 percent of GDP for research and technological development, on par with most other countries – including developing nations. The difference is that the private sector invests three times as much, Escobar told IPS.

Developing countries, particularly small ones, do not have the economic scale to stimulate private enterprise interest in scientific and technological activity. The state then needs to take a “strong initial role,” choosing sectors in each given country where the national scale makes “investment viable,” he said.

For example, he said, because of their size, Brazil and India have the scale to justify investment in aviation.

In Panama, the canal attracts resources for transport technology development, adding value to areas like ports and ships. Likewise, the tropical setting of many developing countries contains a rich biodiversity ideal for biotechnology research that, like computers, does not require a prohibitive initial investment, he explained.

The strategy is to take national conditions into account and focus on specific areas. But yet another challenge, especially in poor countries, is that R&D in science and technology requires “long-term stability,” only attainable through diversified funding sources, Escobar concluded.