Talk by Gordon Conway: Science and Innovation for Development

I attended a talk yesterday by Gordon Conway, former Science Advisor of DfID and former President of the Rockfeller Foundation. He spoke on his new book, Science and Innovation for Development. Al Watkins, the head of the Science, Technology and Innovation program of the World Bank, introduced the talk while describing efforts to increase the STI efforts of the Bank. Alex Dehgan, the new Science Advisor in USAID, also spoke describing the increased attention to science and innovation in that organization. All of this is great!

Yet I recall that there was a United Nations conference on science and technology in the 1960s that marked an increased international attention to science and technology, perhaps related to the enthusiasm for space technology generated worldwide by the space programs of the Soviet Union and the United States. I also recall the United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development in 1979 and the interest and enthusiasm for building scientific and technological capacity in developing nations that the conference represented. I recall the creation of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development in the 1990s, another landmark for global interest in the subject. Following each of these events, it seems to me that the initiatives failed and support for science and technology capacity building deteriorated.

Is there a difference this time? Will the new initiatives succeed where previous similar initiatives did not? Perhaps each of the preceding initiatives left a residue of increased capacity on which the current one can build. Certainly some countries -- India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, Singapore, Thailand among others -- have worked very hard and successfully to create scientific and technological capacity over the decades. Certainly there is more global consensus that science based technology can be the most important motor for economic development, not to mention a necessary tool with which to approach global systems problems such as climate change, environmental deterioration, and endemic and epidemic diseases.

Read a good posting on the launch of the book!