COMMISSION ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT Ninth Session Geneva, 15-19 May 2006

Bio-Data

By

Academician Dato’ Ir. Lee Yee Cheong Malaysia

Ninth Session of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for DevelopmentGeneva, 15 May 2006

“Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in Developing Countries: Where are the STI Knowledge Professionals and Workers?”

By Dato’ Ir. Lee Yee-Cheong, Co-Chair, UN Millennium Project “Science, Technology and Innovation” Task Force/ Senior Fellow, Academy of Sciences Malaysia/ President 2003-2005, World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO)

The World Today

World Population >6.0 billion.

(i) Rich (0.8 billion), (ii) Transitional(1.2 billion)(iii) Poor (4.0 billion)

Criterion: GDP in US$ per capita (PPP) (i) >16,000, (ii) 4000-16,000, (iii) < 4,000 respectively.

Our World of Inequity

The Rich have Nine times Wealth, Eight times Energy Consumption and Eight times Carbon Emission of the Poor.

1.3 billion live in Abject Poverty, on Daily Income <US $1.00;3 billion have Daily Income of <US$ 2.00; 800 million Suffer from Food Insecurity;50 million are HIV positive; 1 billion Suffer from Water Scarcity;2 billion have No Access to Energy.

United Nations Millennium General Assembly 2000 adopted UN Millennium Declaration to alleviate poverty, improve health and promote peace, human rights and environmental sustainability.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the Declaration are specific targets by 2015.

The Millennium Project (MP) 2002-2006 under Professor Jeffrey Sachs reviews current practices, identifies policy implementation, and evaluates financing. The MP’s Objective is to Ensure All Developing Countries Achieve the MDGs.

MDGsGoal 1: Eradicate poverty and hungerGoal 2: Achieve universal primary educationGoal 3: Promote gender equality and empower womenGoal 4: Reduce child mortalityGoal 5: Improve maternal healthGoal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseasesGoal 7: Ensure environmental sustainabilityGoal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

MP Task Forces

1 Poverty and Economic Growth (Goal 1& 8)

2 Hunger (Goal 1)

3 Education and Gender Equality (Goals 2 & 3)

4 Child Health and Maternal Health (Goals 4 & 5)

5 Expanding Access to Essential Medicines (Goal 6 & 8)

MP Task Forces

6 Environmental Sustainability (Goal 7)

7 Water and Sanitation (Goal 7)

8 Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers (Goal 7)

9 Trade and Finance (Goal 8)

10 Science, Technology and Innovation (Goal 8)

STI Task Force was to address MDG No.8 “Building Global Alliances for Development”and Target 18 “In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications”.

Besides ICT, STI Task Force also emphasizes the importance of other platform technologies, namely biotechnology, nanotechnology, material science, remote sensing and spatial information technology.

Key Recommendations of the UN Millennium Project “Science, Technology and Innovation”(STI) Task Force Report “Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development”:

1) Improving the STI policy environment, including STI advice mechanism,

2) Building STI human capacities.

3) Promoting STI entrepreneurial and innovation activities

4) Investing in STI research and development

5) Conducting technology foresight for developing countries for niches in global production chain.

6) Forging regional and international STI partnerships

For Least Developed Countries to lift themselves out of poverty and achieve MDGs, they need:

1) Basic Infrastructure i.e. roads, schools, water, sanitation, irrigation, clinics, telecommunications, energy etc.

2) Indigenous SMEs with Pool of Local Operations and Maintenance Technicians.

Without Basic Infrastructure and Local STI Base, Indigenous Industries cannot upscale and Economy cannot uplift, FDI will not come

UN MP Force Reports form the Developmental Basis of UN Secretary General’s Report “In Larger Freedom: towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All”for the UN Summit General Assembly September 2005

Heads of Governments largely Endorsed in Outcome Statement of the UN Summit General Assembly the UN S.G.’s Development Agenda

All Reports available for download fromwww.unmillenniumproject.org

Following extract emphasizes the importance of STI in achieving the MDGs:

To increase countries’ indigenous capacity for science and technology, Governments should establish scientific advisory bodies, promote infrastructure, expand science and engineering faculties, and stress development and business applications in science and technology curricula.”

STI Task Force Report focus is therefore directed at human resource based and institutional and enterprise-related capacity building in developing countries.

However, STI Human Resources Capacity Building in Developing Countries Faces Critical Problems

Current Worldwide Shortage of STI Professionals results in Brain Drain to Developed Countries. Most Disastrous is at High End of the STI human resource development in R&D institutions in developing countries. Postgraduate research departments have been set up prematurely in the least developing countries with their graduates and researchers finding no local gainful employment and migrating to the developed world, aggravating the brain drain.What an irony it is that developing countries are training highly skilled manpower for the developed world, whilst insufficient resources are devoted to lift the countries out of poverty!

US National Academies published in October 2005 Report that the US Edge in Science and Technology Competitiveness is Slipping.

It cites as evidence that China is graduating some 600,000 engineers a year, India some 300,000 engineers a year whereas USA isgraduating only some 60,000 engineers a year!

Brain Drain Will Worsen!

The question naturally arises:

Are not developing countries entitled to share in the economic benefits of intellectual property rights in contributing so much to the training of STI professionals and knowledge workers for the developed world?

Developing countries face serious problem of declining enrolment in science subjects and courses in secondary schools and universities. There is an aversion to STI amongst the youth in developing countries.

The question of narrowing the STI knowledge gap has little relevance for developing countries, if the number of STI knowledge professionals and workers continues to decline.

In any developing country, the military engineering divisions and units are amongst the best equipped for basic infrastructure construction and rehabilitation. Yet, such invaluable capacity remains idle in the sea of need.

Military engineering units in USA, China, Taiwan, China and Korea, have contributed significantly to the construction of infrastructure and laid the foundation of their bludgeoning construction industry.

In Kenya, there is a worsening famine due to drought. Yet, the 2004 budget allocation for capital projects of water storage for irrigation was under spent due to lack of indigenous implementation capacity.

I have been urging the US Army Corps of Engineers to consider assisting in capacity building of Kenyan military engineering units in water storage projects. The response has been very positive. Meanwhile, Kenyan government and their military have agreed to work together in small dam building and bole hole digging .

South-South Mobility of STI Professionals andKnowledge Workers

Employ STI Professionals From High Income andSTI Advanced Developing Countries, like India,China, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia.

As example, there are more than 2.0 millionengineering students in universities in China withsome 600,000 graduating as engineers each year. To increase this number by 10% would not strainthe engineering educational resources of China butwould be of great help to other developingcountries.

Accreditation and Certification remain very much within the purview of government in developing countries.

South-South and global mobility of STI professionals can only be achieved through the World Trade Organisation(WTO) WTO Member Nations must bring this issue as priority on the GATS Negotiation in the WTO Doha Round.

Universities in Developing Countries must act as the fount of knowledge for development and competitiveness in the global knowledge economy.

Turning out Innovative and Entrepreneurial Graduates should be their Mission.

Universities must be graduating Job Creators rather the Job Seekers.

They should establish undergraduate incubators that assist students to venture into knowledge based enterprises suited to the needs of the economy.

Universities in developed countries can help their counterparts in the developing world in the above transformation. The knowledge in infrastructure development and in nurturing innovative SMEs is really quite general and accessible, if universities in developed countries commit to partner their counterparts in the developing world to put it to constructive use.

A very positive trend in recent years has been the blossoming of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) in university campuses across North America and Europe.

Bulk of EWB volunteers are undergraduate engineering students. EWBs from developed countries partner their counterparts in developing countries in MDG-related and infrastructure-based community projects in the latter.

How about “A MDG Project for Every University”?

The serious problem of declining enrolment in science in secondary schools and universities in developing countries, especially Islamic countries, need to be addressed.

An Initiative of WFEO with UNESCO to instil pride in glorious Islamic Science, Engineering and Technology (S.E.T) Heritage to revitalize the interest of youth in STI as important tools for poverty reduction, economic development and competitiveness was launched with the International Symposium on “The History of Islamic Science, Engineering and Technology” 16-17 March 2006 in UNESCO, Paris.

The Deliverable Outcomes from the Symposium:

•To incorporate the rich Islamic S.E.T heritage and the present day Islamic Role Models into the textbooks and curricula.

•To incorporate historic Islamic S.E.T experiments in the InterAcademy Panel hands-on inquiry-based primary science education programme.

•To have a traveling exhibition of Islamic S.E.T Heritage to Islamic countries, starting with Malaysia.

•To rescue Research Centres in History of Islam S.E.T in Western Universities from Closure.

•To organize subsequent conferences on North East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), Indian, African and Latin American S.E.T. Heritage.

•To encourage developing countries to nominate their significant S.E.T Heritage Installations for UNESCO Heritage Listing.

The Symposium was supported by the InterAcademy Panel, the InterAcademy Council, the Islamic-World Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of the Developing World, the Nobel Museum, the Malaysian government, and WFEO, (A Truly Multi-stakeholder Initiative!)

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia is the Champion. His Ministry has agreed to explore hosting an International STI Centre under UNESCO auspices in Kuala Lumpur to promote the implementation of the above outcomes.

Mobilisation of Young STI Professionals in theUN

The overarching platform technology forcapacity building in basic infrastructure andsmall and medium scale enterprises (SMEs)is undoubtedly ICT.

With available and affordable computerhardware and software, knowledge accessibilitythrough the Internet and robotics and moderninstrumentation, product research anddevelopment can be carried in SME anywhere.

This paradigm shift will mostly occur in SMEswith young STI professionals in charge as theyare without the traditional baggage of cautionand conservatism of the existing S.E.T professionand the business community.

As stated by UN Secretary-General in hisMillennium Report, “More than 1 billion peopleare between the ages of 15 and 24. Nearly 40 % ofthe world’s population is below the age of 20.Most of the resulting youth bulge, nearly 98%,will occur in the developing world. Young peopleare a source of creativity, energy and initiative, ofdynamism and social renewal.

UN Secretary-General was sticking to the OfficialUN age range for Youth of 15 and 24.

In my opinion, UN Secretary-General’s verypositive remark about youth is much morerelevant to Young Professionals above the age of25.

In ICT, billionaires and millionaires, are found intheir 30s and 40s. Many lead and contribute toadvancement of not only the youth of the worldBut also to the solution of the critical problems ofpoverty eradication and sustainable development

In the UN MP and especially in STI Task Force, Ihave persistently promoting the cause of youngSTI professionals.

An achievement was my successful effort to linkProfessor Jeff Sachs with the leaders of the YouthMajor Group during the 12TH AND 13th

Sessions of the UN Commission on SustainableDevelopment (CSD) 2003 and 2004, resulting in Report “Youth and the MDGs: Challenges andOpportunities for Implementation”.

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/youthmdgs.pdf

I urge the Commission on Science and Technology for Development to tap into this most vital and vibrant resource of young STI professionals worldwide by establishing a sub-commission of STI professionals aged 26 to 40.

The Urgent Business of this Century must be the application of knowledge to reduce poverty, hunger, ill-health, illiteracy etc of two-thirds of humankind in helping Developing Countries achieve the MDGs by 2015.

This would require an adequate number of STI professionals and knowledge workers in developing countries to build and maintain physical infrastructure and nurture indigenous SMEs.