STI Capacity Building Partnerships for

Sustainable DevelopmentThe World Bank

Pro-poor Technology for Communities:

An African Perspective

Dr Reinie Biesenbach

Dr Harry Swart

Ms Cynthia Malan

10 December 2009

2

Bottom of the Pyramid“More than 4 billion people live at the BOP on less than $2 a day”

CK Prahalad

Science for Sustainable Development“Science for sustainable development – in energy, health, agriculture, climate, water, and other areas – might be targeted at $70 billion per year…”

Jeffrey Sachs

The New Age of Innovation“Value is based on unique, personalised experiences of consumers. The focus is on the centrality of the individual (N = 1)”

CK Prahalad and MS Krishnan

3

Scientific Apartheid“There is a real danger that the benefits of proprietary science will serve to bring more and more to the privileged few rather than serve the needs of the billions of the marginalised poor and their children”

Ismail Serageldin

Technological Risk “All of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology”

Jared Diamond

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Africa is huge!

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Ubuntu – I Am Because You Are

 African Relational Culture  

Western Rational Culture

Relatio Ratio

Who  What

Community Individual

Character  Credentials

Member Actor

History Future

Relationships  Goods and Services

Source: Gertjan van Stam, LinkNet, Zambia

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Poverty in Africa

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Main Determinants of STI for Sustainable Development

Poverty and Deprivation, leading to a Poverty & Deprivation Index (PDI);

Scientific and Technological Readiness, leading to a Technology Capacity Index (TCI);

The pro-poor nature of emerging and new technologies; and

The socio-cultural issues involved in working with rather than for communities

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Poverty and Deprivation Index [PDI]Poverty and

Deprivation Index (PDI)

INCOME Deprivation

LIVELIHOOD Deprivation

HEALTH Deprivation

EDUCATION Deprivation

LIVING ENVIRONMENT Deprivation

• GDP per capita

• GINI Coefficient

• AID as % of GNI

• Development Assistance per capita

• % of Population below Poverty Line

• GDP Growth Rate %

• Unemployment Rate %

• Inflation Rate %

• Potential entrants to job market (Children under 15)

• The infant mortality rate/1,000 births;

• The HIV/Aids prevalence in adults and/or the HIV/AIDS deaths;

• The incidence of malaria and tuberculosis (% of population);and

• The potential for major infectious diseases.

• The literacy rate;

• The school expectancy (in yrs)

• Years Schooling

• Primary and secondary school enrolment as % of children of school-going age;

• The literacy rate for the population and for the youth.

• The freshwater withdrawal (% of available resource);

• The national per capita electricity use.

• Access to drinking water and sanitation (% of population)

• Solid Fuel Use per capita

• Electricity & residential energy consumption per capita

• Urban Slums (% of urban population)

• % of population living in slums

After HSRC, Stats SA & Oxford University

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Technology Capacity Index [TCI]

Technology Capacity Index (TCI)

National Institutional Capacity Human Capital National Physical

Infrastructure

• R&D expenditure as % of GNP; and

• The number Institutions & universities per million of the population

• The national education expenditure as % of GNP;

• The number of scientists/engineers per million of population;

• The S&T journal articles/scientists & engineers; and

• The number of patents (USPTO & EPO)/scientists & engineers

• The Communication infrastructure (access to land lines, cell phones and internet);

• The transport infrastructure (air fields, railways and roadways); and

• The degree of urbanisation.

After Rand Corporation

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PDI vs TCI – 41 selected Nations

Technology Capacity Index [TCI] >>>>

Povert

y &

Dep

rivati

on

In

dex [

PD

I]

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Most Populous Nations

SADC Countries

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0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

PDI vs TCI – International, SADC and Sub-regional Level Comparison

Povert

y &

Dep

rivati

on

In

dex [

PD

I]

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Technology Capacity Index [TCI] >>>>

Most Populous Nations

SADC Countries

SA Provinces (normalised)

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PDI and TCI – two typical examples

INCOME Deprivation

LIVELIHOOD Deprivation

HEALTH Deprivation

EDUCATION Deprivation

LIVING ENVIRONMENT Deprivation

PDIAsian Country

African Country

Deprivation

Normalised Institutional Index

Normalised Human Index

Normalised Physical Infrastructure Index

TCIAsian Country

African Country

Technology Capacity

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Relative Poverty and Deprivation in Africa

There is only one African economy that falls in the least deprived category;

The most deprived countries lie in a swathe across central Africa;

The north African states are less deprived than those in the south of the continent, with HIV/AIDS making the difference.

Most deprived

Least deprived

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PDI vs TCI – 166 Countries

Technology Capacity Index [TCI] >>>>

Povert

y &

Dep

rivati

on

In

dex [

PD

I]

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

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PDI vs TCI – 166 Countries

Technology Capacity Index [TCI] >>>>

Povert

y &

Dep

rivati

on

In

dex [

PD

I]

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Countries of the world

African Countries

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66.6%

69.5%

66.9%

69.3%

64.6%

58.3%50.2%

58.4%

44.0%

Maputo Province = 18.1%

Maputo CITY= 3.9%

67.4%

52.7%

11.0%

Based on World Bank provincialdata for Mozambique

MozambiqueRelative Provincial Deprivation Indices

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Mozambique RelativeProvincial Deprivation Indices

Maputo Province

Manica

Tete

INCOME Deprivation

LIVELIHOOD Deprivation

HEALTH Deprivation

EDUCATION Deprivation

LIVING ENVIRONMENT Deprivation

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Pro-poor technologies

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Framework of a potential pro-poor technology portfolio

Pro-poor Technology

Portfolio

Water & Sanitation STI advances

Energy STI advances

Information & Communication STI advances

Medicine & Health STI advances

Housing STI advances

Transportation STI advances

Food & Agriculture STI advances

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Pro-poor relevance of 450 technologies

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Income

Livelihood

Health

Education

Living Env

Institutional

Human

Infrastructure

Governance

Relative Relevance (Most relevant technologies)

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Pro-poor relevance of 450 technologies

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Income

Livelihood

Health

Education

Living Env

Institutional

Human

Infrastructure

Governance

Relative Relevance (Most relevant technologies)

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Pro-poor relevance – Health & Medicine [Examples]

Cheap diagnostic kits for developing economies

Edible vaccines

Gene therapy

Low-cost malaria remedies & malaria therapy solutions

New remedies for killer diseases

Paper health-diagnostic tests & rapid bio-assays

Pro-poor diagnostic & prevention technologies

Systems biology

Tissue engineering

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Pro-poor relevance of 450 technologies

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Income

Livelihood

Health

Education

Living Env

Institutional

Human

Infrastructure

Governance

Relative Relevance (Most relevant technologies)

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Pro-poor relevance – Food & Agriculture [Examples]

Agricultural engineering advances

Biotechnology advances

Crop health product advances

Food technology

Genetic modification of insects to control pests and

disease vectors

Genetically modified (GM) crops

Hyper-accumulating plants to take toxins out of the soil

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Pro-poor relevance of 450 technologies

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Income

Livelihood

Health

Education

Living Env

Institutional

Human

Infrastructure

Governance

Relative Relevance (Most relevant technologies)

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Pro-poor relevance – ICT [Examples]

Access Network Technology

Affordable Computer Processing Stations/Platforms

Battery-driven Computers

Communication devices for ubiquitous information access

Health-insight information system technologies

Internet technologies

Rural wireless communications

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Pro-poor relevance of 450 technologies

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Income

Livelihood

Health

Education

Living Env

Institutional

Human

Infrastructure

Governance

Relative Relevance (Most relevant technologies)

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Pro-poor relevance – Housing & Transportation

No technologies from these two sectors in our list of 450;

What about, for example:

o Low-cost housing technologies?

o Low-cost transportation devices/means?

o Transport Logistics?

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Socio-cultural Issues when working with African Communities

• Understand the needs and processes of the community;

• Embrace the local culture;

• Promote local market mechanisms;

• Innovate on existing platforms;

• Be holistic; and

• Co-create.

After Chevrollier, 2009

Reasons for optimism . . .

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http://www.naci.org.za/

In South Africa, the National Advisory

Council on Innovation recently established a

Committee on Innovation for Development

(Inno4Dev) to promote inclusive innovation

in the country’s dual economy

http://www.naci.org.za/

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Dr. Hannes Toivanen, personal communication

In Mozambique efforts are under way to implement a

decentralised National System of Innovation

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http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/en/net/projekte/NET4DC/index.html

Last month Fraunhofer of Germany launched its

Net4DC activity portfolio “Connecting The

Unconnected”, aimed at developing technologies to

provide access to global communication

infrastructures and services for rural, emerging and

developing areas;

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Eg, http://www.globalinnovationcommons.org/

Initiatives such as Eco-Patent Commons,

GreenXchange, the Global Responsibility License

and the Global Innovations Commons are relevant to

the sharing of global knowledge

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Dr. Hannes Toivanen, Personal communication

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the

Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs are actively

promoting STI in various parts of Africa to create an

enabling environment to facilitate upliftment.

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http://www.tno.nl/content.cfm?context=overtno&content=nieuwsbericht&laag1=37&item_id=2009-06-09%2013:12:09.0&Taal=2

In June of this year, TNO in the Netherlands published its

first TNO Corporate Social Responsibility annual report on

the principles of a triple-bottom line approach.

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Focused, radical, inclusiveinnovation to develop local STI solutions

Institutions

Human Capital

Physical InfrastructureT

ech

nolo

gy C

ap

acit

y

Are

as

Income Livelihood Health Education Living Environment

Multiple Deprivation AreasCountry Deprivation

Solutions Matrix

The axes of this matrix represent the primary and enabling STI environments.The axes of this matrix represent the primary and enabling STI environments.

For any given country, insight into the current state of these 8 parameters reflects the collective needs of the country, and serves as basis for the development of an appropriate STI programme

So what?

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In Conclusion

Work with communities;

Look for opportunities to co-create;

Forge appropriate, sustainable partnerships;

Understand poverty and deprivation at community level;

Identify the key challenges;

Introduce relevant pro-poor technology to achieve sustainable solutions;

Measure the impact;

Build on experience to improve approaches.

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Therefore…

Let us live our dreams, not our history.

The future we desire will not come from an extension of the past.

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Thank you.CONTACT DETAILS

Dr Reinie Biesenbach rbiesenbach@theinnovationhub.com

Ms Cynthia Malan cmalan@theinnovationhub.com

Dr Harry Swart harrys@what-works.co.za