With a budget of US$3.8 billion for 2009 the Gates Foundation has great ambitions and a big war chest. But will their technology-based approach deliver? Medical technology as a solution to health problems is up for debate. Optimists think of technology as a “magic bullet”, bringing immediate relief, alleviating suffering and, most importantly, saving lives. Pessimists argue that too much focus on technology can distort development. A strategy based on more vaccines, more pharmaceuticals and more R&D risks side-lining yet more fundamental health problems (see Global Health Watch – GHW2 Report).
The Foundation needs now to think about how best to ensure technology promotes development. From the 1960s studies have provided convincing empirical evidence of the conclusion that common sense suggests – that developing countries cannot reap the economic and social benefits from technological advance without incurring the costs of innovation and learning. Studies on “Technology and Development”, “Dependency theory” and more recently the “National Systems of Innovation” approach have shown again and again that social and economic development, or “catching-up”, is not simply a question of accelerating the pace of technological diffusion and increasing access to new technologies. Development involves developing specific capabilities, skills, generating new knowledge and the ability to creatively apply what has been learnt (see Lundvall, 2005, and Lastres and Cassiolato, 2008).
A key step is empowering local actors, particularly those involved in innovation. This includes a wide-range of social actors and organizations: scientists, local universities and research labs, communities, families, government organizations, educational systems and, importantly, local business and industrial systems. The Gates Foundation has established partnerships with R&D institutes in developing countries, particularly through initiatives such as the Grand Challenges in Global Health that aim to promote research from developing regions. However, by far the top favoured grantees are US-based universities and R&D institutes including the University of Washington and John Hopkins, representing a huge supply-side innovation push to these institutes and dwarfing contributions to support innovative R&D efforts from developing country scientists.
Great science isn’t done in isolation. It is important that support to individual scientists feed into local systems of innovation, however incipient, and to the overall strengthening of local capabilities. This process is neither linear nor can it be divorced from politics. A lot more thought and informed debate is essential to contribute to an improved strategy that will enable harvesting technology gains for social and economic development.
Linked to the technology and development issue, the Foundation’s webpage is curiously lacking in information regarding its Intellectual Property Rights policy. An email requesting more information received a prompt reply to the effect that “the foundation does not own or generally take intellectual property rights in innovations resulting from its grants. The foundation does require that its grantees manage intellectual property in a way that assures that knowledge gained through foundation funded projects is made broadly available, and products developed with foundation funds are made accessible to people most in need at an affordable price. The foundation refers to this as “Global Access.” It does not provide a blueprint for exactly how this should be accomplished; rather, the foundation leaves it to its grantees to develop a strategy that will assure Global Access.”
So, beyond rather vague statements to the effect that the tools that are developed with the Foundation’s funding be made accessible at reasonable cost in developing countries it is not at all clear that the Gates’ strategy will improve access to and the generation of knowledge in these countries. In this context, it is useful to keep in mind that as far as knowledge is widely acknowledged as a public good generating high positive economic and social effects (externalities), the construction of scarcity through the commoditisation of knowledge raises daunting challenges related to ethical and economic efficiency (Serfati, 2008 “Financial Dimensions of transnational corporations, global value chain and technological innovation”. Journal of Innovation Economics, 2008/2 – No. 2, pp.35-61). If property rights cannot be waived for essential health technologies, than surely it is at least essential that research findings and policy implications are broadly discussed so as not to foreclose possibilities for indigenous technological development.
There are substantial potential advantages of using innovative technologies. Prosperity may, under specific conditions, be enhanced by the creative use of new technologies. And, as GEG’s Kevin Watkins reminds us, “in the current climate and with so much at stake, armchair aid cynicism is a luxury we can’t afford.” In this period of economic crisis, there is an urgent need for an active public policy that not only contributes to push forward the technological frontier, but also highlights the complex issues and relations involved in technological change, learning and development. As Freeman pointed out over 20 years ago, this calls for strong and patient public policies which have a dimension largely lacking both in monetary constraint and in Keynesian stimulation policies (Freeman, 1982).
The design of active policies that enable developing countries to take ownership of aid activities in their countries and also to link this to spur technological learning and growth will necessarily have a strong local content and direction. The international research and policy communities also have an important role to play, particularly working on an improved global understanding of the links between aid, technology, and development. This debate is important to ensure that, in the long haul, technology actually does serve the interests of development.
