New UN Report Urges Innovation in Developing Countries

In the same week that Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalization Project Director Calestous Juma released the final report of the UN Task Force on Science, Technology, and Innovation that he coordinated, the disastrous tsunami hit South Asia. The task force report, titled "Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development," focuses on the need for developing states to harness the power of technological innovation to improve the lives of their people and the economies of their countries. The tsunami provided a tragic example of the need for innovative technology in this case an early warning system.

The "Innovation" report is one of ten commissioned by Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the United Nations Millennium Project. Juma's report outlines key areas for urgent national and international policy action to accelerate economic and social progress in developing countries, even within the next five years.

"There is an urgent need for developing countries to pursue those public policies that begin to tap the tremendous benefits promised by science, technology, and innovation," said Juma. "Now is the time to plant the seeds of change - in education, government and the private sector - that can begin moving developing countries forward."

The Task Force recommendations aim at implementing the Millennium Development Goals adopted by all governments in 2000.

They include:

• Strengthening the ways governments use science and technology advice to inform development policy and implementation;
• Putting institutions of higher learning to the service of community development; and
• Designing infrastructure projects as a foundation for technological innovation.

The Science, Technology, and Innovation Task Force is composed of 18 representatives from academia, the public and private sectors, civil society organizations, and UN agencies. It was coordinated by Juma (who also coauthored the report) and Lee Yee-Cheong, president of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations.