Science and Innovation for

DevelopmentBy Gordon Conway and Jeff Waage

with Sara Delaney

World Bank, May 17th 2010

Gordon ConwayImperial College, London

What the book covers

• Part 1 – Mobilising Science for Development

1. The Nature of Science and Innovation

2. Appropriate Innovation

3. Building Partnerships for Innovation

• Part 2 – Science and the MDGs

4. Progress towards the MDGs

5. Combating Hunger

6. Improving Health

7. Achieving Environmental Sustainability

• Part 3 – The Challenge of Climate Change

8. The Science of Climate Change

9. Adapting to Climate Change

• Conclusion

What the book doesn’t cover

• Anything outside of the natural sciences

• Risk/Regulation

• Governance/Institutions

• HOW to make it happen

Why not?

The MDG Targets

1. Halve poverty and hunger

2. Achieve universal primary education

3. Eliminate gender disparity

4. Reduce by 2/3 child (under 5) mortality rate

5. Reduce by ¾ maternal mortality rate

6. Halt and reverse spread of HIV AIDS and incidence of malaria and other diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a global partnership for development

Progress to the MDGs in SSA

What is an appropriate

technology?

• A technology is appropriate if it:

– Is readily accessible and

affordable

– Is easy-to-use and maintain

– Serves a real need

– Is effective

• Can come from:

– Conventional

– Traditional

– Intermediate

– New-platform

Traditional

Technologies

A Javanese Home Garden

IntermediateTechnologies

Treadle Pump

Wamalwa Farm, Siritanyi FFS, Kanduyi.

Maize-groundnut intercrop providing 5330

kg maize and 1203 kg groundnut per ha.

These results indicate that MBILI can

produce significant food surpluses.

Rasike Farm, Chililila WG. MBILI maize-soyabean

intercrop providing 1215 kg maize and 545 kg

soyabean per ha when conventional intercrops

failed. These results indicate that MBILI is a

means toward greater food security.

Conventional Technologies

(But more Precise)

Deep Placement of USG briquettes in paddy

Controlling Striga

• 2.4 m ha

• $380m loss

• Maize resistant to Imazapyr

• Coat seed, herbicide kills Striga

• BASF, Weismann. CIMMYT, IITA, NARS, NGOs

New Platform Technologies

ICT – Mobile Phones

New platform technologies: ICTs

• Mobile telephones in

Africa: 52m (2003) to

250m (2008) subscribers

• M-Health, M-Banking

• Internet access in Africa:

1000% growth from2008

• ICT for all – cheap and

durable computers: One

Laptop Per Child (OLPC

– XO)

New platform technologies:

Nanotechnology• Disease diagnostics – “lab

on a chip” systems for

portable devices

• Improved drug delivery

• Water purification:

– Nanomembranes

– Carbon nanotubules

– Magnetized particles

– Clays and zeolites

Biotechnology

• Plant biotechnology:

– Genetic Modification

– Marker Assisted Selection

– Tissue Culture

• Medical biotechnology,

advances in vaccines:

– “killed”, “attenuated”

– recombinant subunit DNA

vaccines

– recombinant vector

vaccines

The New Rices for Africa

Monty Jones004

Marker aided Selection

Monsanto’s Chipper

Recombinant DNA or ‘GM’ Crops

Uganda

Golden Rice

Diamond Back Moth

Source: CIMBAA

A Mixture

e.g Malaria

Artemisia annua

Insecticide-treated Mosquito

Bed Net

Recombinant malaria vaccine

PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI). Available at:

www.malariavaccine.org/malvac-approaches.php

Doubly Green Revolution

• The aim

•repeat the success of the Green Revolution

•on a global scale

•in many diverse localities

• and be

•equitable

•sustainable

•and environmentally friendly

Climate Change

• Known knowns

• Known unknowns

• Unknown unknowns

Africa’s Climate

Naturally varied and variable

www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/working_papers/wp61.pdf;

Annual rainfall anomalies in the Sahelian zone

Climate Change: 3 Major Drivers affect the

Developing Countries

1. Tropical convection

2. The monsoons

3. El Niño – La Niño Oscillation

Inter-

tropical

Convergenc

e Zones and

Monsoons

January

July

La Niña

El Niño

www.cpc.ncep.gov/products/analysis_monitoring

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus

.wolter/MEI/

El Niño – La Niño Oscillation

El Niño La

Niña

What we do and do not know

Temperature and rainfall projections,

1980 to 1999 versus 2080 to 2099

scenario A1B

Target

Adaptations

Reduce

Vulnerability

Promote

Development

Kn

ow

led

ge

Pyramid of Adaptation

Stress

Shock

In many places droughts and floods will occur

with greater frequency and intensity

STRESS or SHOCKD

ev

elo

pm

en

t

Anticipate Prevent Recover Learn

Survey Tolerate Restore

Build Resilience

Science and innovation:

traditional linear concept

A science innovation system

A Global Innovation System Insecticide Treated Bed Nets

• Advanced research institution– the Medical Research Centre in Gambia

• Multidisciplinary team linked into larger worldwide network– WHO, Wellcome Trust

• Fundamental science and technology – Pyrethroid insecticides

• An international dimension– Impregnated nets using resin from Saudi Arabia,

insecticides from Japan, Chinese workforce

• A range of donors – MRC, WHO, Dutch and UK governments.

Fotosearch

Innovation Boats

Examples of Global Innovation Systems

• Vaccines against HIV

• Photovoltaic cells

• Drought resistant maize

• Improved cassavas

• Nanotechnology water purifiers

• New crops for ethanol

• Drugs for malaria

Building National Innovation Systems

Need to develop:

• Coherent science, technology and innovation policies

• An educated workforce

• Innovative enterprises & entrepreneurs

• Education, Vocational Training, and R&D Institutes.

Building Capacity (1)

• train scientists, engineers, technicians, and

policy makers;

• promote grass-roots, “inclusive innovation;

• develop local institutions that can scale-up

locally generated grass roots innovations

and also identify, evaluate, and import

technology that is in widespread use around

the world but which is not being used

domestically to address local development

objectives;

Building Capacity (2)

• strengthen capacity of local scientific and

engineering institutions to conduct the R&D

needed to adapt these technologies

• develop the technology transfer know-how

needed to move inventions from the

laboratory to the market;

• help local enterprises become more

innovative;

• improve governance and financial

sustainability of the national STI system

•

Role of World Bank

• Knowledge of many different countries and

many sectors within each country.

• Financing for essential systemic policy

reforms and complementary investments.

• Convening power to coordinate activities

• Long-standing business relationships and

access to national policy-makers in both

developed and developing countries

To download or order:

www.ukcds.org.uk