Demos describes itself as a 'think tank for everyday democracy' which is not linked to any political party but was recently described by a columnist for a leading British paper as "the New Labour's thinktank of choice" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1797573,00.html).
The pamphlet comes as a response to recent activity which has raised the profile of science and technology on the international development agenda. including the UN Millenium Development Goals and the recommendations of the 2005 Commission for Africa.
The first of the three 'global science races' described in the pamphlet is 'the race to the top of the global economy' which takes as a model the explosive growth of the Asian Tigers and the Indian and Chinese economies. This pitches development as a process of modernisation; thus African countries will 'leapfrog' their way out of poverty by "creating incentives and promoting an enabling environment for foreign direct investment is one of the most important mechanisms for building technological capacity" (http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/tf_science.htm).
This is a view seemingly endorsed by Calestous Juma, the Kenyan Professor of the Practice of International Development at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In a recent publication entitled 'Going for Growth: Science, Technology and Innovation in Africa' he called for a rethinking of the African economic landscape to "..focus on the role of knowledge as a basis for economic transformation. Doing so will entail placing policy emphasis on emerging opportunities such as renewing infra-structure, building human capabilities, stimulating business development, and increasing participation in the global economy. These areas should provide a firm foundation upon which to base international partnerships." (http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/documents/GoingforGrowth_AMEN...)
The second race is the 'Universal fix' which the authors describe as 'breakthroughs in science and technology that will have a direct and widespread impact on poverty. These are the types of breakthroughs that are exemplified by the Grand Challenges in Global Health (http://www.gcgh.org/) which is funded by the wealth of Bill Gates (currently standing at around $50 billion). Examples of these 'fixes' are treatments for diseases such as malaria. This approach is often characterised by public/private partnerships and views development as a common moral reponsibility.
The slow race to citizens' solutions advocated by the reports authors takes a different road. Its approach is informed by participatory approaches to development; "Rather than being viewed as passive beneficiaries of trickle-down development or technology transfer,in this race,citizens are seen as knowledgeable, active and centrally involved in both the ‘upstream’ choice and design of technologies,and their ‘downstream’delivery and regulation."
Such an approach means reconceptualising innovation to involve a 'systems approach' which engages multiple actors and rethinks the cultural and social relationships that will enable a technology to work and impact on poverty reduction. This approach requires interdisciplinary research and 'bottom-up' problem definitions.
The importance of access and ownership in what is described as a 'privatised' world of research and development is another aspect of the 'slow race'. This privatised world has resulted in a 90:10 gap in which only 10% of the overall world health research budget is spent on diseases which affect 90% of the world's population (http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK...). Some public/private partnerships are seen as a viable response to the squeeze on public sector finances caused by structural adjustment programmes. Mobile phone technology is cited as a private sector development which can be of genuine benefit to the poor.
Engaging citizens in debates to shape decisions about technology is seen as a vital part of the 'slow race'. The pamphlet's authors stress the need for public engagement in debates about science and technology and cite the success of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa as an example of a "campaign to assert the rights of citizens to scientific knowledge".
At the pamphlet's launch in London last week, Dr John Mugabe, the Director of the NEPAD Office of Science and Technology, spoke of the need to get African governments involved in science and technology policies and to create a political culture in which citizen's commissions might operate effectively. He spoke of how new models of public private partnerships with small and medium sized enterprises will offer power gains to the poor.
Dr Suman Sahai, the convener of the Gene Campaign (http://www.genecampaign.org/), which is dedicated to protecting the genetic resources of the South and the rights of farming and tribal communities, critiqued the view of genetic technologies as a 'universal fix' for poverty and hunger. The story of the nutritionally enhanced 'golden rice' which was pitched as a cure for widespread vitamin A deficiency exemplifies this, and on the Gene Campaign website she describes how "...the poor blind children that were held up as the reason why Golden Rice was being developed do not seem to be part of the discourse anymore" (http://genecampaign.org/News/golden-rice.htm). This is a view echoed by Mariam Mayet from the African Centre for Biodiversity, when she spoke to Pambazuka News of how African countries have been subject to pressure to accept GM food; "In May 2003, when Sudan banned the import of GM food aid, it was forced to issue a series of temporary waivers enabling food aid shipments to the country to continue while alternatives were found" (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/34804).
Several people raised the issue of how effective citizen engagement in public decision making about science can be in politically repressive environments. Dr John Mugabe spoke of the need to create a political culture in Africa in which 'citizen's juries' on science and technology might operate effectively.
The issues raised in the pamphlet are of global importance and the authors are to be congratulated for making the pamphlet available under an 'open access' licence, thus encouraging debate and conversation around these vital sigues (http://www.demos.co.uk/catalogue/theslowrace/).
Yet it is unfortunate that the authors did not spend more time on the significant challenges posed by climate change as a major threat to humanity and on the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies both as a tool for economic development and for participatory approaches to development.
In addition, a debate needs to be had around the issues of how citizen's participation can work effectively in politically repressive environments and how multinational corporations can be held to account when, as Nnimmo Bassey recently described in Pambazuka News, "Oil corporations such as Shell and Chevron, who are major players in the Niger Delta, have admitted to contributing to corruption and violence/civil unrest in the Niger Delta." (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/34801).
"The Slow Race - Making technology work for the poor" is a new pamphlet published jointly by the British 'think tank' Demos and the Institute of Development Studies.
