Some thoughts on science and technology for least developed nations

There is a circularity between scientific and technological knowledge and investmetn in economic development. When a country increases per worker investment in tools and plant, it almost always seeks to change the techniques employed in the work; when it increases per capita investment in the labor force it usually wants people to "work smarter" and thus to improve productivity. As the efficiency of the economy increases, investment is more attractive; people save more to invest more and it is easier to attract foreign capital. As capital per worker increases there is a move toward more capital and less labor intensive technology. The process is circular!

Too often we emphasize technological dependence rather that technological opportunities. Don't tell the folk in a poor country that they are dependent on foreign knowledge and technology. Rather tell them that they have opportunities to acquire knowledge and technology from abroad and thus to focus their energy on selecting from the abundant affordable knowledge resources available internationally and (importantly) on learning to utilize them well and fully.

Too often it is suggested that research is more important to the improvement of science and technology than I believe it truly is, and too often current theorists emphasize innovation and undervalue the deepening of technological capacities in enterprises which I believe to be crucial for the least developed nations.

I find it useful to point out that there are important aspects of science rather than technology for economic development. Thus the ability to characterize soils, to identify agricultural pests, to study epidemics of human, animal and plant diseases, to identify mineral resources, to understand forest systems, to predict the weather and climate are all important but are not "technology". I find that a lot of those emphasizing technological innovation not only fail to emphasize mastering the technology once innovated, but also the need for science to help identify and manage resources and problems.

It might be useful to think about a dual strategy for many least developed nations, separating the export oriented economy from the subsistence economy. The quality requirements for international markets are quite different from those for subsistence farmers. There is a major need to increase agricultural productivity in the least developed nations where so many people are employed in subsistance agriculture; and there is a need to increase productivity in the large urban informal economies that increasingly mark these nations. Too often donors seem to emphasize the export oriented economy to the exclusion of that employing most of the poor.

For the least developed nations there are opportunities both to do knowledge based incremental improvements in productivity (such as incremental improvements in health and agricultural technologies) and technology leapfrogging (as in the use of cell phones rather than landlines). Neither kind of improvement should be neglected.

Human resources: extension workers, paramedicals, etc. The least developed nations have to delegate technological functions to paraprofessional intermediaries since they have so few university trained professionals. These nations share a huge need to improve the technological knowledge of their workforces. In the short run there can be some help via technology using radio, SMS and other systems to get information out widely In the long run, the schools should do better, so that improved technology training for teachers may be a key; distance education for teacher training may help.

Finance is a huge problem for the rural and urban poor seeking to innovate and deepen their technology capacity. Microfinance has been a great boon to such innovators, as has the move to recognize the capital they possess by giving title to property. Microfinance institutional innovations may also be accompanied by technological innovations, such as mobile phone mediated financial transfers used in parts of Africa.

As any economist will tell you, policies and institutions are critically important. The institutions include not only government and commercial organizations, but markets, non-governmental organizations and associations (professional societies, business associations, cooperatives, chambers of commerce. Too often people forget the institutions that are not formal organizations, and indeed "market like" institutions such as the interface between government and the private sector or the academic and the private sector are important. Not only can one invest in these institutions, but there are potential technological fixes as ICT can improve the interface.

Extension services are clearly important in agriculture and smalll-business extension services are also found in some countries. In the health and nutrition sectors, the health promotion and education system is in function an extension service, but is seldom described as a "health extension service". Some cross fertilization among services providing knowledge outreach may be useful.

ICT is creating new opportunities for the poorest nations: Look at things like the Datadyne MIP project (http://www.datadyne.org/programs/mip) or Voxiva health information systems (http://www.voxiva.com/). Other things that may be useful include:

• Remote sensing for natural resource identification, mapping and management
• Automated translation -- I use Babelfish to translate from Portuguese which I don't read very well and from German which I don't read at all
  

Interesting that Mozambique, which has no oil, has three quarters of its exports in fuels and mining products, but there is no emphasis in the paper on geology or mining technology.

I was shocked in Uganda by how few professional engineers there were in the country. But then I realized that the lack of professional engineering services helped explain why the railroads and ports could not be kept in operation, why the road system was so inadequate, why the potable water and sewerage systems were so inadequate, and why the electrical system didn't work. I bet the same problem exists in Mozambique. But then how would you train a professional engineer in Mozambique (usually requiring years of apprenticeship after university under a professional engineer) and how would you keep him in country once trained?

The Education for All movement, based on both a global commitment to a right to free-basic education and to economic studies showing the high economic returns to primary education seems to have led to inadequate investment in the training a the cadre of workers in the knowledge-based professions in many countries. A country needs to train, utilize and keep engineers, public health officials, ICT professionals, economists, and other professionals in adequate numbers if it is to make adequate progress. With limited resources there are trade offs between the amount of education one can guarantee to all and the amount of education allocated to filling the professional needs of a nation. Some care has to be given to finding the right balance.