Poor nations 'need science boost'

Unctad is calling for a doubling of aid

Poor nations are being sapped of the technology they need to break the poverty trap and catch up with the rest of the world, the UN has said.

Its trade and development agency Unctad used its annual report on Least Developed Countries to look at the role of science, technology and innovation.

Rather than being luxuries, they are necessities to help economies that are underdeveloped to grow, Unctad argues.

Technology could spur poor nations "to break loose from their poverty trap".

'Lack of balance'

"We do not see the real mainstreaming of technological policies in the [current] poverty reduction strategies," Unctad director general Supachai Panitchpakdi said.

Less than 4% of the World Bank's overall lending has gone to science and technology projects in the last quarter century, Unctad reported.

We're not just arguing for a rebalancing of aid, but also for an increase in aid Zelijka Kozul-Wright, Unctad report author

"There is a lack of balance between the governance and social issues and technological issues," Mr Panitchpakdi said.

He also said that the 50 least developed countries (LDCs) needed to build the right environment for technological development.

That, he said, would encourage investment in education and infrastructure. But at the moment only a handful of the Asian LDCs - Bangladesh, Cambodia and Laos - were following the science route, he added.

In addition, foreign aid and investment are not creating strong enough technical knowledge or commercial infrastructure to enable poor nations to develop their own independent technology sectors.

"We're not just arguing for a rebalancing of aid, but also for an increase in aid," said one of the report's authors, Zelijka Kozul-Wright.

"We're calling for a doubling of aid."

Overseas companies have preferred to invest in the minerals and oil industries in Africa, and have transferred little lasting technological knowledge to the poorest nations.

Brain drain

The report also indicated that market forces were having a "very limited" impact on advances science and technology in LDCs.

The better-off developing nations import 12 times as many capital goods, useful in encouraging domestic technological capacity, than LDCs.

The report found that one million of the 6.6 million people in LDCs with higher education were working in industrialised nations.

And a dozen of the LDCs have lost more than one third of their skilled professionals.