Conference discusses technology priorities

Conference discusses technology priorities

The technology divide is becoming a major concern for many countries at a time when science and technology development is moving forward.

Published on November 6, 2007

The issue was raised during a ministerial roundtable on science and technology for sustainable development held at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco)'s headquarters in Paris two weeks ago.

Ministers of science and technology from some 60 countries discussed identifying priorities in the formation of policy decisions that could guide and inspire Unesco's actions in the field.

During the meeting, the so-called technology divide was raised by the science minister from India and many countries agreed to reduce the divide.

"In the past we talked about the gap between rich and poor countries in terms of income, but now it's time to be concerned about the divide of haves and have-nots in terms of technology," Science Minister Yongyuth Yuthavong said after the meeting.

He said that while the development of science and technology was in progress, it also brought a new technology divide, especially in developing countries, which had limited resources when they came to develop science and technology.

"The technology divide is a key problem which many countries have to tackle, otherwise it will bring wider inequality to the world," Yongyuth said.

In the meeting, he said, there was a decision to have Unesco act as a centre for technology transfer to developing countries so that each country would have a chance to improve their situation.

Yongyuth said the so-called technology platform would be established as an information source, which would gather technology projects and patents from countries all around the world to allow other member states access for further collaboration.

Under the technology-platform idea, another suggestion was raised by Mexico to develop what it called a voluntary licence. Yongyuth said the idea was to allow each member state, especially those who are developing countries, to use technology developed by other countries with no charge.

The concept is to encourage each country to put their technology development in Unesco's technology platform under a voluntary licence so that other countries could use such technologies. Yongyuth said this would boost technology sharing and transfer to improve the development of science and technology around the world.

However, there would also be some conditions under the voluntary licence, Yongyuth added. For developing countries, the voluntary licence could be free of charge, but those which have a better economic status may have to pay for the licence, though at a lower cost.

Unesco would play the role of just a middleman to provide a source of information, but to use a voluntary licence would involve collaboration between the two member states.

From Thailand's point of view, the science minister said that this move would benefit the country as it offered a short cut to further development.

"We can use voluntary licences to improve areas where we are not strong enough. Meanwhile, we can use the licences to help other countries in the region such as Laos or Vietnam to develop," he said.

Apart from the technology divide, Thailand's science minister also raised in the meeting emerging issues of concern to science and technology development.

He said that to develop science and technology in a new era, it's necessary to consider supporting not only the masses but also ageing people who were now becoming a larger group in society. Meanwhile, the development of new energy sources as well as tackling environmental and global warming problems were also major concerns which could be solved by science and technology.

Yongyuth also stressed the emergence of new diseases and asked for developments in medical therapy to tackle the problems. He said more diseases were emerging in society so new medical treatments that would be more preventive were required, and this needed collaboration among member states in science and technology development.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation

Paris