Evaluation of the UNESCO Policy and Capacity Building for STI

UNESCO is currently recruiting a small team to evaluate its programs in policy and capacity building for science, technology and innovation. Thinking about the terms:

• "Science" is involved in the creation and dissemination of knowledge,
• "Technology" is involved in the applications of knowledge to practice, in areas such as manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, environment, mining, forestry, fisheries, etc.
• "Innovation" is the process of introducing new knowledge and technology into a society, and in this context, especially to the economic systems of a society.
• "Policy" is often used to indicate an entire range of concerns from policy to strategy to tactics.
• "Capacity building" would include education and training to build human capacity, but also organizational development and the development of other institutions (such as the markets for technological services or professionalization instittuions).

The problem is, in my mind, that UNESCO deals with these issues in such a variety of contexts. There is an African STI Initiative, related to a UN wide effort in support of development and application of science and technology in Africa. There is also The Venice Process for Reconstructing Science Systems in Eastern Europe, which includes or is related to more general issues in STI in the region, More generally, the Science Policy unit has a global responsibility. Thus it must address not only Sub-Saharan Africa and the former Communist nations, but also the Islamic nations, Latin America and Asian nations.

In the poorest nations, research and development may be almost completely absent, while in the most advanced developing nations it may represent two or three percent of GDP. In the poorest nations, the productive activities tend to emphasize extractive industries in rural areas, be labor rather than capital intensive, and be carried out by often ill and often poorly educated workers. With economic development there are shifts to manufacturing, urban areas, more capital intensive technology, and more human capital. Thus there are huge differences in the technologies involved and the productive systems in which they are utilized.

Institution building seemingly should depend on the existing institutions, building on what exists and making such adaptions are are both likely to enhance productivity and acceptable within the larger cultural matrix. Again, the existing institutional bases and cultural matrices are quite different in each of these regions, not to say in every country.

The key to success for UNESCO is to tailor each program not only to the resources available and the demands from the host country, but also to the needs of the situation. The evaluation would seem to be required to focus on how well UNESCO staff, consultants and advisors do so. That in turn would require a team to make informed judgments as to what is appropriate in each situation.

Many years ago I participated in a long evaluation of USAID/s lead program for the development and introduction of Appropriate Technologies in developing countries. We sent teams out to Africa, Asia and Latin America, reviewing the work of grantee teams in Africa, Asia and Latin America respectively. The result was three reports that had little in common. We had confounded the differences in the evaluation teams with the differences in the project teams and with the differences in the situations that they faced. We were never able to disambiguate the three to my satisfaction.