Articles

"To harness the globally available technologies, African leaders will need to take into account the multisectoral dimension of African agriculture and pay particular attention to the urgency of investing in rural infrastructure, higher agricultural training and creation of regional markets."

Africa is yet to adopt full scale technology-led development. Steve Mbogo spoke to the Director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalisation Project and professor at Harvard University Calestous Juma on the opportunities that await the continent as a late comer.

"The challenge is finding an entry point for fostering science, technology and engineering cooperation between China and Africa. An obvious starting point is agriculture. There are two reasons for this suggestion. First, agricultural transformation was one of the first major programs launched by China after the adoption of the 1982 constitution."

Cell phone use has grown faster in Africa than in any other region of the world since 2003....Of course, South Africa—the most developed nation—still has the highest penetration, but across Africa, countries have leapfrogged technology, bringing innovation and connectivity even to remote parts of the continent, opening up mobile banking and changing the way business is done.

"The rising concern over global food price volatility has put agriculture at the center of international diplomacy. But unlike the 1950s when food aid became a major tool in international relations, modern interactions among states are being defined by trade and knowledge transfer. A new field — agricultural diplomacy (AgroDiplomacy) — is emerging as countries learn more about their shared ecological experiences and agricultural trade interests. The prospects for building such relations are evident in the rise in cooperation between Africa and Latin America."

"...it is a mistake to see high prices as a proxy for actual hunger. Most of the world's hungry citizens do not get their food from the world market, and most who rely on the world market are not poor or vulnerable to hunger."

"I would urge every scientist and engineer with an interest in the intersection of S&T with sustainable well-being...to 'tithe' 10% of your professional time and effort to working in these and other ways to increase the benefits of S&T for the human condition and to decrease the liabilities. If so much as a substantial fraction of the world's scientists and engineers resolved to do this much, the acceleration of progress toward sustainable well-being for all of Earth's inhabitants would surprise us all."

"This introductory essay explains how this new technology is being driven by the actors (multinational corporations), markets (large global markets) and rules (intellectual property) of globalisation."

Are Northern sources willing to tranfer technologies to developing countries? Is technology sharing among developing countries a more promising avenue — and more appropriate?

My development goals have been set by the United Nations since the first "development decade" of the 1960s. What is new about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? First, an unprecedented assembly of the world's heads of state generated them when they met in September 2000. Second, the goals put human development-poverty and people and their lives-at the center of the global development agenda for the new millennium, a shift away from growth as the central objective of development. Third, MDGs are not just aspirations but provide a framework for accountability; they do not simply state ideals but go on to define concrete goals that can be monitored. Fourth, they address not only development outcomes but also inputs from rich countries, thus forming a compact that holds both rich and poor governments accountable for opening markets, giving more aid and debt relief, and transferring technology.