AT
PRO INNO Europe: INNO-Grips
"Editorial" p2 in Inno-GRIPS Newsletter n°3 April 2008, special issue on innovation for development
Short enough to reproduce here:
"Our preoccupation with the new challenges of climate change and an ageing population is understandable, given their seriousness. But many
of the old problems that beset humanity are still very much with us. Many people remain locked in extreme poverty, confronting hunger and disease
on a daily basis. Yes, there are political factors at play: bad governance, cross-border and domestic conflict, and lack of investment in nurturing human
capabilities. Is it too presumptuous to think that innovation will be part of the solution? After all, there has been considerable progress in many
regions of the world, in terms of economic growth and raised living standards (though often at a cost).
Innovation – in terms of technology transfer and diffusion; use of advanced technologies; and some advanced organisational techniques and service activities –
is certainly a substantial part of these success stories.
Of course, the theme of science and technology for development is
a long-established one. In Europe, the last peak in research and
practice was probably in the 1970s, before the neoconservative
approach to politics persuaded many decision makers that practically all problems would be solved by freeing up trade and investment, and
letting markets operate more freely. The world has changed substantially since then.
New fundamental technologies, globalisation, geopolitical change,
environmental problems, the rise of new “emergent economies”, and many other factors have redrawn the context for development. Or have they?
In the 1970s the situation facing developing countries was substantially different from that facing the industrialised countries a century or so
earlier. We were in a world where technologically advanced nations were investing heavily into further technology development; where corporations were organising their production and distribution in a new international division of
labour; where notions of “catch up” were counterposed against those of “appropriate
technology”. This did not prevent some countries from transforming themselves dramatically, in short periods of time, though this rests on the
basis of long-term investment and strategy.
Now, the countries that seem most locked into cycles of low growth and persistent poverty are facing a situation that is in some ways more
extreme (faced, for example, with the impacts of climate change). But there are also lessons to be learned from how others have achieved some
degree of development and even “catch up” (though the term is very imperfect): new
technologies; growing understanding of how innovation and knowledge
transfer strategies may differ from technology policies; decades of
practical experience in both top-down and grassroots mobilisation of
innovation for development.
It is in this context that INNOGRIPS organised its Think Tank
meeting on Innovation and the fight against Poverty, Hunger and Disease
in Rabat last December (2007), exploring how approaches to
innovation and development are responding to the new global context, and what lessons could be drawn from various approaches. A rich discussion
highlighted important areas for further work and identified issues to consider in policy formulation.
We hope that it will be the beginning of an ongoing set of dialogues on these themes. In this special edition of the newsletter we present a variety of interesting articles linked to these themes, which include an expert's view on
breaking down barriers to innovation and unlocking potential in developing countries; exploring the potential of the internet in transforming civil society organisations in a developing country, and we feature an example of
progress in doing innovation based business in India."
