New Generic Technologies in Developing Countries

Governments and policy-makers in developing countries have over the last four decades invoked the injunction ‘science and technology for development’. The conviction that technology is one of the keys that unlocks the development door is based on the perception that the dramatic rise in the material prosperity, economic strength and political power of Western Europe, North America and Japan over the last one hundred years is due in no small measure to the conscious and systematic application of modern science and modern technology to the social processes of production, distribution, communication, organization and control. The translation of this perception into action has varied greatly from region to region in the Third World, depending on the varied outcomes of the historical impact of the West on the economies and societies of Africa, Asia and Latin America. More specifically, it has depended on the magnitude and character of a base in modern industry and infrastructure that these regions inherited at decolonization.

It is rare today to find a country which has not formulated some sort of technology strategy. With almost monotonous regularity, three areas of advanced technologies are listed as priorities for national development: Information Technology (IT), Biotechnology (BT), and Advanced Materials (AM). These are hailed as revolutionary new technologies whose potential for changing the fundamentals of economic life are such that no country can afford to ignore them.

It has long been recognized that radical technological change based on microelectronics technology is having and will continue to have far-reaching consequences for developing countries. Information technologies have provided the means for economic, institutional and technological changes that are altering world-wide patterns of production and distribution. Developing countries’ insertion into the global economy is deeply bound up with the new technologies, and the efficient use of information technologies by these countries is on the policy agenda of all important international forums concerned with development. On the other hand, the 1980s and early 1990s — during which period information technologies have diffused rapidly in the developed world — have witnessed a dramatic increase in the gap between rich and poor countries. We live now in a more divided world, ‘a world where OECD nations, Triadic-grouping, Multinationals or whatever, constitute ‘a partially-integrated whole’ and a greater majority who are without, or excluded’.¹

The group of advanced materials includes ceramics, polymers, metals and composites. These were introduced into the world economy on a significant scale in the second half of the twentieth century; they are characterized by a high degree of purity, high technical performance features, and by high value added in the production process.

China still belongs to the developing world, and its per-capita income is less than US$400 per annum. After more than a decade of effort, it has managed to provide enough to eat and wear for its 1.2 billion people. Although about 5 per cent of the population has yet to cast off poverty, the average Chinese person has a secure food supply of about 400 kgs per annum and a modest income. At the present stage, the most important task in China is to advance to a better standard of living, to a level of US$1000 per capita per annum. The Chinese decision-makers believe that China should, in addition, embark upon high-tech development. China hopes to shorten the lengthy development road that the developed countries experienced and to employ high technology for national growth. The scientific community in China sees high-tech development as the key to seizing the opportunity for advancement.

The growth of scientific and technological culture in India has played an important role in attracting world attention to indigenous capabilities. Today, India has a vast S&T infrastructure with more than 200 national laboratories, over 190 universities including institutes of technology, and about 1200 in-house R&D units in the industrial sector. Indigenous efforts have enabled the country to make considerable progress not only in developing local capabilities but also in adopting and adapting exotic technologies. The president of the Institute for Scientific Information (USA) has referred to India as a Third World ‘research superpower’. India is the only ‘developing country’ to figure as high as eighth (above Italy and Australia) in a list of the ten top countries contributing to world literature in science. In a Science Citation Index (SCI) coverage of 5000 journals, India was found to publish more than 10 000 papers a year during 1981–85.¹

In recent years African countries have shown an increasing interest in biotechnology.¹ This interest has been enhanced by the growth in awareness of the subject generated through the recent negotiations for the Convention on Biological Diversity. Biotechnology has been viewed largely as a technical issue. However, the ability of the African countries to derive significant benefits from biotechnology will depend largely on the degree to which they reform their national policies to facilitate the acquisition and adoption of capabilities associated with biotechnology.

Activity in materials technology is age-old, starting from the use of agricultural materials, stone, bronze, iron, clays and ceramics. However, most of the developing countries have to varying degrees missed out on the scientific and industrial revolution of the last 300 years, including the revolution in materials technology. This has resulted in a reduced availability of materials per capita in developing countries in terms of both quality and quantity, as compared to the advanced countries.¹ The developed world is currently undergoing yet another revolution in materials, an example of which is high-temperature superconductors. It is imperative that the developing world is adequately prepared to exploit the opportunities opened up by these new materials. The priority is to build capability in the developing world to exploit the opportunities from the new revolution in materials while meeting its challenges. This will involve multidimensional activity, including building capacity for technology forecasting, technology assessment, formulating materials policy, education, training, research, development, manufacturing, testing and standardization.

Access to adequate levels of energy services is a critical prerequisite to development. Energy services are essential to virtually all productive and service sectors. Agriculture, mining, industry and transport are all critically dependent on adequate energy services. One of the most dramatic and current demonstrations of how critical energy is to national economies of developing countries is a recent statement by the president of the Philippines, Fidel Ramos, in which he specifically noted that the absence of reliable power was currently the single most important impediment to national economic growth.^l Even service sectors such as trade, commerce, communications, education, health and entertainment all require reliable energy to function properly. Consequently, the development and dissemination of energy technologies is of interest to a wide range of sectors in developing countries.

For an engineer, a sustainable system is one that is either in equilibrium, operating at a steady state, or one that changes slowly at a rate considered to be acceptable. This concept of sustainability is best illustrated by natural ecosystems. They function as semi-closed ‘loops’ that change slowly. For example, the hydrological cycle involves continuous evaporation from the oceans and other surface bodies of water up into the atmosphere. The vapour then moves over land where precipitation occurs as rain or snow. The water then returns back to the ocean through surface streams or groundwater, and the process is repeated over and over. The food cycle involving plants and animals represents another illustration. Plants grow and thrive in the presence of sunlight, moisture and nutrients. They are then consumed by herbivores and insects, which in turn are eaten by various classes of carnivores. The resulting waste products replenish the nutrients, which allows the process to be repeated again and again.

Eighty-five per cent of the world’s population live in poor countries, but they only use between one-third and one-quarter of the energy and one-third of the metals. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations has repeatedly expressed deep concern about future food supply, because no less than 35 per cent of the area suitable for cultivation has been largely destroyed by soil erosion and salination. Even worse, it is likely to decline by 21 per cent over the next 20 years, and this will happen as fish catches drop by perhaps 10 per cent or so.

Today many of us live in a world where computers, telecommunications and other tools of the information technology age are becoming ever more pervasive in our work. But two decades ago, information technologies (IT) meant expensive mainframe computers tended by specialists, requiring arcane language skills and much care and tending. Remote sensing was a new science and the analysis was mainly visual, not digital. At that time, with telephone systems scarcely functioning in most developing countries, the idea of the developing world entering the IT age seemed an unrealistic notion to many. But this scepticism was not shared by the founders of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), who, in framing the Act of the Canadian Parliament¹ which established IDRC in 1970, planted the first seeds with references to ‘information and data centres and facilities for research’ in developing countries. This early recognition of the importance of Information Sciences to research and development led to the establishment of programs in this field at IDRC.² IDRC and its partners in Canada and in developing countries have since accumulated valuable experience in the development of IT and its application to research.

Several developments during the 1980s have influenced thinking on the appropriateness and challenge of applying advanced biotechnology in the developing world. Biotechnology is considered dualistic in its impact: apart from the potential positive contributions it can make to the development process, there might be negative consequences as well.

Science and technology constitute important activities in all advanced industrialized countries and the technology component is generally regarded as the driving force for economic development. Thus government and agencies pay great attention to policies and programmes that promote science and technology for the well-being and security of the citizens of the nation. In a gradual shift from military security to economic security, nations are giving increasing emphasis to the promotion of national technological development, and it has in the past been common to consider the nation as a national system of innovation (NSI).

There is a plausible argument that recent developments in technology and in the organization of the international economy have made the issue of technology in Third World industrialization more important than at any time since the 1960s. This is the context for discussing the implications for Northern aid policies. It is discussed very briefly in the first section of this chapter. In the second section, there is a discussion of the implications of new technologies for trade, investment and development, based on research ideas at the United Nations University Institute for New Technologies in Maastricht, the Netherlands. This is followed by a third section which draws conclusions for aid policy. The emphasis is on the industrial sector, but the arguments can be generalized.