Science & Technology

Each year, the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School welcomes new pre- and post-doctoral fellows and visiting researchers to a select team of scholars exploring the critical role that science and technology play in everyday life.

"The tools available to India in the 1960s are not sufficient to address the challenges that African agriculture now faces. These include a rapidly-growing population, productivity loss due to ecological disruption, environmental decay, droughts, climate change, and conflict. Biotechnology offers additional tools that can help Africa address some of these challenges. It is another moment that calls for the kind of political courage that led to the adoption of the Green Revolution."

The Summer 2010 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center's involvement with the Nuclear Security Summit, which was organized by Center alumni Gary Samore and Laura Holgate.

"African governments have a unique opportunity to turn the climate crisis into an opportunity. The starting point is for them to start creating domestic markets in clean technologies, many of which are now widely available. They need to define themselves as leaders in "green innovation" since they have not committed themselves too excessively to polluting technologies. They should be vigilant against import of polluting technologies. It is a chance for them to build a new image around their moral standing of being the lowest polluters."

The lecture will explore the role that emerging technologies can play in fostering economic growth and improving human welfare in Africa. It will re-examine opportunities for development cooperation between the United States and Africa in light of the current global food and financial and crises. It will draw on experiences on the linkages between economic growth and technological innovation in fields such as agriculture, health, energy, education, and environmental management.

The lecture will be from 12:30–1:30 pm, at the University of Toronto, Medical Sciences Building, 1 King's College Circle, Room 2172.