By Tito Drago
Inter Press Service
May 25, 2001
The indiscriminate use of advanced technology from the North in developing nations was questioned at a seminar in Madrid that drew engineers and representatives of around 50 non- governmental organisations from a number of countries to the capital of Spain this week. Technology does not play a neutral role when it comes to development processes, Eduardo Sánchez Jacob, the coordinator of the forum, said Friday. The main objective of the conference organised Thursday to Saturday by the international association Engineers Without Borders is to come up with guidelines for the design and use of appropriate technology in the development aid arena.
The main issue under discussion involved the use of state-of- the-art technologies. George MacRobie, vice-president of Britain's Intermediate Technology Development Group, said the application of energy- intensive technologies imported from the industrialised North aggravated rather than solved the problems of the developing South. Such technologies require limited labour power, in countries with huge armies of unemployed people, and set up shop in urban areas, thus fuelling the migration of the impoverished rural population to the slums that ring big cities, he pointed out.
Jorge Huacuz, with Mexico's Electrical Research Institute, cited the need for designing ''new responses'', capable of resolving the problem of bringing power to rural parts of the world, by using renewable resources like solar or wind energy.
Technology, no matter where it is applied, can only be understood and valued in relation to the social group that creates or uses it, because ''every model of society and development conceives of and uses a different kind of technology,'' said Sánchez Jacob. He recalled that in the mid-20th century, the idea was that poor countries could attain the development achieved by the North by drawing investment and industrialisation. However, ''it did not take long for that theory to be refuted, and many Third World countries have not followed the same evolutionary pattern as those of the North, but have come to a standstill instead,'' he added. Sánchez Jacob noted that ''modernisation and growth are often achieved at the cost of the environment, and without raising the standard of living of the majority of the population.'' Today, the concept of appropriate technology - that which is best suited to the economic, social and cultural characteristics of developing countries - is growing in strength, he said. He underlined, however, that it was not just a question of designing and providing the right technologies to excluded communities, but of calling attention to those technologies which hurt human development, by modifying the environmental equilibrium, for instance. Besides the impact of technology, the seminar discussed the need for a ''social focus'' to make it possible to integrate ''backwards'' sectors into the market economy.
Daniel Rodríguez, the manager of the Agro-processing Programme in Peru, said the development of small and medium farms would not only depend on technology, but largely on farmers' knowledge of the demand and requirements of the market. However, ''one of the biggest challenges of appropriate technology is, undoubtedly, coming up with sustainable mechanisms of technical assistance, training, information and financing,'' he added. Valentín Villarroel, with Engineers Without Borders, noted that telecommunications infrastructure in Latin America was characterised by low quality and costs that were often unaffordable for household budgets. Equipment is old and outdated, especially in the field of informatics, and ''opting for new technology implies high costs and the risk of becoming obsolete in a very short time,'' he explained. Villarroel stressed the need to expand infrastructure to facilitate access to telecommunication networks, give priority to community action over individual needs, adapt technology to local necessities, and prevent telecommunications and the Internet from being concentrated in a few hands.
One question that triggered much discussion was brought up by Juan José García Ferrer, the vice-president of the Commission for Cooperation and Development of the Madrid Federation of Municipalities and Provinces. García Ferrer said the satisfaction of basic needs, and in consequence access to certain essential services, was an international right of citizens. He pointed out that among others, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights mentioned the right to decent housing, education, and health care when needed. But ''to speak of a legal right, a person must have the possibility to defend that right in court,'' he argued. ''Can a woman from Maputo [the capital of Mozambique], or at least an association in her name, turn to any court to demand food, vaccines, water, housing or the infrastructure necessary to make it possible to satisfy those needs which are indispensable for living differently than animals?'' asked García Ferrer.
Unfortunately, he said, the answer is no. ''Access to certain basic services should be a right, and it is the responsibility of each of us to contribute to getting those who can't see beyond the horizons of their own existence to react in the present in order to keep today's well-being and progress from becoming the antechamber of a world that is more uncomfortable for all.
''It is time to negotiate a new global social order,'' he concluded.
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