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MISTICA: Technology proclaimed the answer to poverty

From: Yacine Khelladi ([email protected])
Date: Tue Aug 14 2001 - 16:01:04 AST

from TAD Consortium August 2001 Information Update No. 2
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"Technology proclaimed the answer to poverty", By Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY - Technology may be the master key for eliminating poverty
in a world where the income of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population is
equal to that of the poorest 57 percent, the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP) said Tuesday as it presented its Human Development Report
2001.

What are needed are treaties, international investment, and market
regulations so that advances in medicine, agriculture, and technology
are used to solve the problems of the poor and do not further widen social
gaps, according to the UNDP.

Presented in Mexico, a country the UN agency considers a "potential
leader" in technological progress, the report indicates that scientific
advances
are not free of risk - such as the case of genetically modified foods - but
stresses that this does not erase its validity as a tool for
development.

As in previous years, the UNDP report ranks 162 countries based on human
development factors. In this year's document, Norway, Australia and
Canada top the list, while in last place is Sierra Leone, where life expectancy
is just 39 years.

The best-placed countries in the human development ranking also stand
out for their level of technological advancement, as seen in a new index
UNDP developed for this year's report, titled "Making New Technologies Work
for Human Development". Leading off the new list are Finland and the United
States, while Sudan and Mozambique bring up the rear.

"With the Internet, agricultural biotechnology advances and new
generations of pharmaceutical products reaching the market, it is time for
a new
partnership between technology and development," says Mark Malloch
Brown, UNDP administrator. However, it will be an uphill battle to ensure that
access to technology is more democratic and that it benefits the poor,
according to the UNDP document.

Technological breakthroughs in pharmaceuticals and agriculture and the
development of the Internet are currently concentrated in just a few
countries. They represent efforts that are nearly always geared toward
dealing with problems that are unrelated to the world's poor countries.
For example, "only 10 percent of global health research focuses on the
illnesses that constitute 90 percent of the global disease burden", says the
report.

And while 54.3 percent of the population of the United States has access
to the Internet, in the rest of the world - where it could represent an
important tool for distance learning - just 6.7 percent of the
population has access, according to the Human Development Report 2001.

There are even older technologies that have not yet reached the poor.
Electricity distribution services, which have existed for more than 100
years, continue to be beyond the reach of one-third of the world's
population. Furthermore, there are 2 billion people who do not have
access to essential, low-cost medicines, including penicillin.

The 29 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), encompassing the world's richest countries and 14
percent of the global population, are responsible for more than 85
percent of the existing scientific patents and research published in
specialized
journals. Furthermore, these countries invest an average of 2.4 percent
of their gross domestic product (GDP) in research, while in the rest of the
world the portion fails to reach 1 percent.

But many developing countries also have a great responsibility for the
deepening of the technology divide because they have not adopted the
necessary policies or designated funds for research, says the UNDP. As
an example, it cites the governments of Africa's sub-Saharan countries,
which are among the poorest and lagging farthest behind in technology, but
which spent US$7 billion on weapons purchases in 1999.

The UNDP report, produced by a team of experts following extensive
research and intensive information-gathering efforts, maintains that the
time has
come for rich countries and private research organizations to provide
resources and knowledge for overcoming the problems of poverty.
Technology can aid in development efforts and help meet international goals for
eradicating poverty, but if it does not involve innovative policies, it
could turn into a source of exclusion and not a tool for progress, warns
the UNDP. The UN agency acknowledges that technology is currently driven by
the market and not by the needs of the poor.

Last year, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, the world's leaders
signed an agreement to take measures to cut world poverty in half by
2015, based on present levels. According to the UNDP, just 18 countries are on
track for meeting that goal, while another 137 have fallen far behind in
their efforts.

The challenge the world is facing today "is to match the pace of
technological innovation with real policy innovation both nationally and
globally. If we can do that successfully, we can dramatically improve
the prospects for developing countries of meeting their key development
goals," stressed Malloch Brown.

(Inter Press Service)

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