Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
Silvia Hostettler , Eileen Hazboun and Jean-Claude Bolay (eds.) Technologies for Development 10.1007/978-3-319-16247-8_1
1. Technologies for Development: What Really Matters?
Abstract
Technological innovation is vital for finding solutions to key challenges the world is facing. Climate change, pollution, disease, rising inequalities, and chronic poverty all need to be addressed. We need renewable energy sources, efficient transport networks, functioning public health systems, well-designed infrastructure, improved agricultural systems, and access to quality education for everyone. Technologies for development play a key role as pathways to sustainable development. Developing and emerging countries can take advantage of technological leapfrogging in key domains such as health (mHealth), energy (solar, wind, and hydropower), education (massive open online courses [MOOCs]), urban development (smart cities), and agriculture (precision farming). Developing and emerging countries could even surpass high-income countries in the use of information and communication technology (ICTs). We can expect technological innovation to be increasingly developed in the Global South and to become a source of inspiration for the Global North. Living labs, open-source, and open innovation movements are growing trends that will support and accelerate the development of effective technologies. Standards are needed to guarantee the quality, reliability, and safety of technologies in the Global South, particularly for medical devices. International Standards Organization (ISO) and United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards often prove to be slow, inaccessible, and expensive.
1.1 Introduction
The EPFL-UNESCO Conference on Technologies for Development (2014 Tech4Dev) focused on the question, What is Essential? Indeed, in a world in which we are permanently connected and bombarded with a wealth of information, there is undeniably a need to find out what is important and to set priorities. This is particularly true in the field of development in which so many challenges persist. How can we effectively reduce poverty? What is the role of technologies? How can they be successfully developed and deployed? How can their impact best be evaluated? We know that technologies must be developed in partnership with the intended beneficiaries and ideally in a local environment to be compatible with the socioeconomic and technological context (Hostettler and Bolay ). We also know that we have to integrate potential up-scaling from the beginning of technological development. This will allow us to manufacture a technology at a large scale at affordable cost once we have developed an appropriate prototype.
Successful technological innovation will depend on all these factors. However, in this introduction I wish to take a step back and focus on the question What really matters? It seems that what we need are technologies that support sustainable development in its social, environmental, economic, cultural, and political dimension. We need technologies that are energy efficient, accessible to all, and environmentally and financially sustainable in the long term.
1.2 Key Challenges
If we look at the world, we realize that we face very important developmental challenges indeed: unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns, the impact of population growth and climate change, to name just a few. Even though some significant progress has been made since 1990, 15 % of the global population still live in extreme poverty and 805 million people are still chronically undernourished (FAO et al. , p. 11). Clearly, the current global development model focused on short-term economic profit is unsustainable. We will need to make a consistent effort to find solutions to these challenges. Technological innovation is one pathway to sustainable development.
The potential of technologies for development has been particularly well illustrated by the technological leapfrogging that occurred in countries like Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. These Asian governments realized the central role of technological innovation for development, and they started promoting research and development programs (Rowen et al. ). These technologies may, for instance, focus on energy efficiency in smart cities to using information technology for a range of applications from mHealth to precision farming. One key challenge is to achieve sustainability in the environmental, social, and economic sense. It is not sufficient if a technology is financially sustainable in the long term but its production is based on extensive use of fossil fuels or on social exploitation. In the same way, a technology that is appropriate but unaffordable will equally fail. An encouraging example is the Fairphone which is not only a technology that can potentially contribute to development by improving access to information, health and financial services, but is also produced by a social enterprise that aims to develop a smart phone with minimal harm to people and the planet. This brings us to yet another problem, a problem of scale. At what spatial and temporal scale do we measure sustainability?
The concept of planetary boundaries has emerged to define a safe operating space for humanity as a precondition for sustainable development. The nine planetary boundaries were first introduced in 2009 and apply to climate change, change in biosphere integrity, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, biochemical flows, land system change, freshwater use, atmospheric aerosol loading, and introduction of novel entities (Steffen et al. ).
1.3 Technological Leapfrogging
What is clear is the preponderant role technologies will play in our efforts to identify pathways to sustainable development. Some technologies will allow emerging and developing countries to technologically leapfrog ahead in certain domains. This has already happened in the field of telecommunications. On average 75 % of the world population own a mobile phone (World Bank n.d.). Many countries will not install fixed telephone lines in all regions. A large part of the population moves directly to the stage of owning and using mobile phones and smart phones which opens enormous possibilities. For instance, the percentage of mobile cellular subscription users in Bolivia jumped from 71 in 2010 to 98 in 2014 (World Bank n.d.). Many countries are skipping the initial step and leveraging the development of cheaper, more advanced technology. This is particularly true for the domains of health (mobile health), education (distance learning), and energy (solar, wind, and hydropower). Developing countries have the opportunity to technologically leapfrog to renewable energy solutions, thereby avoiding as much as possible dependence on fossil fuels. Seeing rapid urban development, emerging countries in particular should seize the opportunity to build smart cities wherever possible in these often resource-poor contexts. Developing and emerging countries could even surpass high-income countries in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) (Howitt et al. ).
What matters in the field of technologies for development is that the technology contributes to sustainable development and is in itself as sustainable as possible in terms of use of valuable resources, its contribution to pollution, and the social issues linked to its production. We can simply not afford to continue in a direction driven mainly by financial motives.
