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TECHNOLOGY GAP
source: www.unesco.org/bpi/science/
content/press/anglo/7.htm
http://multinationalmonitor.org/
mm2004/07012004/
july-aug04corp4.html
www.cid.harvard.edu/cidinthenews/
articles/iht_082701.html html
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A technology gap between the richer and poorer societies will remain in terms of cutting-edge technologies and with respect to the breadth of adoption of new technologies…- Many of the challenges countries and regions of the world are facing in such areas as sustainable development, economic growth, health care, education and agricultural production are increasingly subsumed to a common denominator: developing knowledge societies and economies;
- there are huge discrepancies between countries and regions in their approaches to building a knowledge society. UNESCO estimates published in 2001 show that, in 1996/97, the developed countries, with 22% of the world’s population and 61% of its GDP, accounted for some 84% of its global R&D expenditure. In other words, the developing countries, with 78% of the world’s inhabitants and 39% of world GDP, only contributed to some 16% of the global R&D expenditures, although their relative weight in terms of researchers was slightly higher: 28%; (1)
- many experts agree that science and technology (S&T) investment needs to be above 1% of GDP to have any significant impact on the level of development. S&T investment in the most developed countries is over 2% of GDP, with Sweden (4.27%) and Finland (3.5%) spending the largest proportion. (1) In sub-Saharan Africa, only South Africa and the Seychelles spend about 1% of GDP on R&D;
- clearly, without the necessary infrastructure, high levels of education and regulatory policies not everyone will be able to harness technology (for example, in March 2005 there were only 13.4 million Internet users on the entire continent of Africa, compared with 259.5 million in Europe and 35 million in the UK alone). Equally though, there will be disparities within societies between those willing and able to work with new technologies and their social demands and those that cannot or will not;
- according to Bruno Lanvin, manager of the World Bank’s program to close the digital divide, it could take about US$50 billion to bring Africa to the level of connectivity of Portugal or Turkey. That's too much for public agencies, - he argues - but it isn't too much for private companies; (2)
- however, as stated former UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor Zaragoza, as important as the level of funding is that the funding should come from a country's own wealth, not from loans. In developing countries over 60% of R&D finance comes from foreign loans and grants (eg. 64% of S&T funding in Kenya in the early 1990s, 68% in Tanzania and 98% in Uganda);
- according to UNESCO, (3) in 1996/97 an estimated US$547 billion PPP (purchasing power parity dollars) was spent on R&D in the world. Among the regions, North America represents around 38% of world R&D expenditure and the major part of this was, of course, spent in the USA. The European and Asian shares are of broadly the same magnitude, each accounting for some 28-29% of the world total. The European Union (EU) countries together spent 1/4 of world GERD. (4)
- GERD and researcher numbers for Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States in both Africa and Asia are insignificant when seen from a global perspective, accounting together for less than 1% of world GERD and a little more than 2.5% of the world’s researchers.
- If scientific research was considered a 'public good' at the turn of the 20th century, there is evidence that it is increasingly seen as a 'market good' today, at least in industrialised countries. In the USA, private funding is twice government funding. Japan's ratio is converging to this, while the ratio in the European Union is slightly less pronounced (in 2002, private-sector funding accounted for only 56% of total R&D spending);
- evidence that newly industrialising countries (NICs) have largely skipped the transition from an academic to an industrial base can be seen in the Republic of Korea, where in 1994 industry was financing a staggering 84% of R&D compared to 15.9% by government;
- to be considered as a NIC, the UNESCO has set norms as indicators of a nation’s R&D status. The level set for R&D expenditure is 1.5 % of GDP and 380 R&D professionals per million inhabitants. Most developing countries are below these standards. In the Philippines, R&D expenditure is 0.22%, Indonesia 0.24 %, Thailand 0.14%, and Bangladesh 0.03%. There are only 157 researchers per million inhabitants in the Philippines, 112 in Thailand, 162 in Indonesia and 50 in Bangladesh. (5)
- most developing countries invest little in R&D, and those investments that are made are usually financed by governments, and/or performed by public research organisations like universities and government research institutes. For instance, 60% of all R&D funding in Brazil came from the public sector, while 55% of all research activity was performed by universities and government research institutes. In South Africa, 65% of all R&D was performed by either universities or government science councils; while in Mexico, 79% of R&D was performed by public research organisations. (6)
(1) In 2004, the United States R&D expenditure measured 2.59%, Japan 3.12%, Korea 2.9% and the average for European Union member states was 1.96%. The European Union has set a goal of achieving an average R&D expenditure of 3% of GDP by the year 2010.
(2) UNESCO Institute for Statistics, "The State of Science and Technology in the World 1996-1997", Montreal, Quebec, 2001.
(3) Herald Tribune, 27 August 2001.
(4) GERD: Gross domestic expenditure on R&D.
(5) Merle Tan and Marlene Ferido, “Public Understanding of Research in Developing Countries: Challenges and Opportunities”, online at: http://pcstnetwork.org/PURWorkshop/word/Ferida_Tan.pdf.
(6) SA National Advisory Council on Innovation, Key Facts and Figures, 2002.Source: www.iipi.org/articles/TTMetrics.pdf
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