Two Opinions from SciDev.Net: Excerpts

(From L to R): Dr. John Marburger, Dr. Arden Bement, Dr. Nina Fedoroff, Dr. Jeff Miotke, and Mr. Michael O'Brien at the NSF Hearing on International Science and Technology Cooperation, April 2008.

"The world's poor deserve better US leadership" (Editorial by David Dickson, 31 October 2008.

The US election has implications for science and foreign aid policy, and so for the poorest people across the developing world.

When Colin Powell, former Republican secretary of state, endorsed Barack Obama, the Democrat candidate in this year's US presidential elections, he said his decision was partly because the United States will need "to fix up the reputation that we've left with the rest of the world".

Powell's views are widely held across the world, in developed and developing countries alike. Opinion polls show that recent actions, from aggressive engagement in Iraq to heavy-handed restrictions on foreign visitors, have undermined respect for the United States.

A key task facing the next president will be to regenerate this international respect. Ensuring the country's security will, of course, remain a high priority. But these two goals can be pursued more sensitively, and at less political cost, than they have recently been.

"US science office must promote global collaboration" (Rodney W. Nichols, 31 October 2008)

Rooting international strategies in sound science means reviewing the role played by the US White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in enabling science and technology (S&T) to inform foreign policy, and overhauling the government's Agency for International Development (USAID).......

The government's next big hurdle is reforming the entire ensemble of US foreign aid, which totals almost US$25 billion, to infuse S&T into all goals aimed at improving the lives of people in the developing world.

Reforms of USAID are especially urgent. The agency has a budget of about US$15 billion and is a prime example of the distortions that result when short-run political and bureaucratic actions trump rational priorities. Politically appealing, short-lived programmes are often prioritised over the major sustainable initiatives that underpin long-term development.

Comment: I know both David Dickson and Rodney Nichols, and both are distinguished observers of international science policy. Their views deserve your close attantion.