(Newindpress) Science for development? Thursday January 6 2005 17:18 IST
David Dickson It was meant to happen in 1999. The year the World Conference of Science, held in Budapest in July, was meant to draw the attention of world political leaders to the importance of science and technology in promoting economic and social prosperity. This in turn was to trigger a raft of political activity in developed and developing countries to boost efforts in this area. Unfortunately this did not happen. For most countries, the focus of aid policy remained on alleviating poverty directly, an approach that has reduced science to a peripheral, even optional, ‘add-on'. This attitude was reflected in a lack of political interest in science and technology within developing countries. Although many sent their science ministers to the Budapest meeting, few felt the topic of sufficient importance to deserve the attention of more politically significant figures such as finance ministers. Promising signs have been emerging over the past 12 months, from institutions such as the World Bank, the United Nations, and the British government, that the tide may have turned at last. 2005 could be the year science climbs back on to the international development agenda, reoccupying the position from which it had been displaced for the past two decades. If this does happen, however, the new challenge will be to avoid the mistakes of the past by ensuring that science and technology are integrated into policies at all levels, and not seen as offering instant cures to deep-rooted social and economic problems. Science and technology must become embedded in the social fabric of developing countries. Lessons of the tsunami There could not be a more dramatic — or terrible — illustration of this need than the devastation that swept through the coastal communities of South and South-East Asia as a result of the recent tsunami. It seems almost a natural law that when disaster strikes those who suffer most, and whose needs for both protection and help are therefore the greatest, are those who are already the most disadvantaged. This is true not only between developed and developing countries — the richer countries on the Pacific rim, for example, have already installed sensitive tsunami-detection systems — but also within the developing countries themselves. There is obviously no way that science and technology could have prevented the underlying events that caused such a tragic loss of life. But there is evidence that the technology exists, in fields such as seismic detection, hydrological dynamics and telecommunications, with the potential — at least in principle — to prevent the loss of life occurring on the scale that it did. One obvious measure would have been to ensure such communities were provided with a more sophisticated early-warning system. This is now being put in place in many of the countries that were affected. Government of India, for example, has already announced a significant enhancement of its detection capabilities. There are lessons for ways in which scientific information is communicated. There have been reports of the frustration experienced by scientists who have, in recent years, been unable to convince government officials of the dangers revealed by their seismological investigations into the likelihood of an earthquake occurring in the region. This frustration turned to despair on December 26 as many of those same scientists, having detected the earthquake almost immediately, failed to convince government officials of the likely outcome — and thus their warnings were not communicated to many thousands. Research has also pointed to other potential protective strategies. For example, researchers at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India, have noted that destruction of mangrove forests along Asian coastlines have increased their vulnerability to storms. But, again, their warning seems to have gone largely unheeded in the pressure for commercial exploitation, for example, for shrimp farming. Science into development It is clear that as the surviving members of shattered communities around the Indian Ocean attempt to rebuild their lives, science and technology have a key role to play in providing them the knowledge and tools to do so in a secure and sustainable way. At a national and regional level, it is essential that researchers in developing countries become directly engaged in discussions on the ways in which their skills can be better integrated into the policy machinery. It is also important that these countries build the scientific and technological skills that will enable them not only to identify the most effective protective strategies, but also to put these strategies into practice. The same might also be said about the need to build an effective capacity in science communication. For instance, a better awareness of the dangers of tsunamis among local radio and television journalists could have formed the basis of an effective early warning system. At the international level, there is a similar need to ensure that relevant scientific knowledge is made available to those who need it for their decision-making. Britain’s treasury minister Gordon Brown has already suggested that one immediate step the world's developed countries could take to help the countries of South and South-East Asia rebuild coastal areas would be to agree jointly to temporarily freeze repayments of debts owed by these countries to international banks. An equally significant move would be to persuade such countries to make a similar joint commitment to significantly enhance their support for science and technology capacity building initiatives within the developing countries. The opportunity for such a step already presents itself: the G8 meeting of the world's largest industrialised economies in Scotland in July. The British government, which will host this meeting, has indicated its willingness to put science more firmly at the heart of its aid efforts. Even without the recent tragic events there was a strong case for taking similar action at the international level, and thus using the G8 meeting as an opportunity to make 2005 the year of 'science for development'. That case must now be overwhelming. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Help save the life of a child. 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