Essay on the Problems and Prospects of Technological Innovations in the Developing World

Essay on the Problems and Prospects of Technological Innovations in the Developing World

Introduction:

Today more than ever before developing nations which account for over T0% of the world’s population are in dire need of technology to overcome the myriad problems of excess population, poverty, illiteracy and unemployment.

Development of Thought:

Every nation begins its journey of development with predominantly traditional systems characterized by poor products and poor technologies. The right kind of education, infrastructure, and institutions will put them on a development track, but not before they encounter a great deal of resistance from the old guard and various interest groups.

To be able to respond to the pressures of rapidly changing technology and management, developing need strong modern institutions. These institutions form the backbone of democratic functioning for law and order, defense, security, industry, commerce, education, technology and many other related activities.

In today’s fast-changing technological world, developing nations are now placing greater emphasis on science and technology and setting up more institutions to promote science. Today, developing nations are in dire need of technology to increase productivity.

But these technologies are in the hands of Western nations, who are trying very hard to block their coming to the market. If leaders in developing nations do not change and adopt some radical economic reforms, they will be left behind with a primitive production base and obsolete technology and products.

Conclusion:

If developing nations wish to fulfill the basic needs of its people and usher in an era of modernisation, it is imperative that they achieve technological excellence and invest appropriately in human resource development.

Developing nations account for over 70 per cent of the world’s population, spread over a hundred nations of Africa, Asia, Middle East and South America. They obtained freedom just about 40 years ago when the Cold War was beginning. They have been backward in many respects, compared with the Western nations.

Some of them are grooming under poverty, excess population, shortages, inflation, unemployment and a large unplayable debt.

For a while, they did get the attention of the advanced nations of the West because of their natural resources, wild life, jungles, mines and minerals. A lot of this has already been over-exploited and has vanished.

In many developing nations, a great deal has been accomplished in the last 40 years. A significant portion of the resources has been used up in building the infrastructure and institutions necessary to bring about prosperity.

In spite of these efforts, and support form international agencies and Western nations, most of them still face many a monumental developmental task to meet the basic human needs, eliminate poverty and improve the standard of living for their people.

They need more resources from the Western world, but now more resources from the Western nations will flow into Eastern Europe and the Soviet nationalities than into developing nations, because of geographical closeness, cultural affinity better trained manpower.

Christian values and work ethics and other factors. A massive amount of money will be spent on Czechoslovakia rather than on Zimbabwe, on the former East Germany than on Egypt. There is little doubt that in the next decade, the socialist nations if Europe will take up most of the resources and will leave very little for the need developing nations.

In the view of Western institutions, they tried very hard, for almost four decades, to developed resources and business in development nations. Against all odds they deputed their key people, deployed key technologies, but did not get adequate returns.

They did not succeed in a big way in building an institutional infrastructure or a sustainable market base. In the process, they took more raw materials, ruined the local ecology and environment and exploited the local inexpensive labour.

No major breakthrough was reported in any collaborative effort or business. They merely sold the finished products. They could only transplant technology but not transfer it.

The disparities between the developed and developing nations have given rise to a great deal of tension. The tension seems likely to increase further because of the recent awakening in Eastern Europe and the Soviet nationalities.

If developed nations fail to give special attention to the problems of developing nations and create a similar awakening there also, the globalization of economy and trade, integration of the socialist nations and associated realignments the world over, will suffer.

Among the ills affecting developing nations are pressure of population, illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, resource crunch, low level of technology applications, poor infrastructure for communication, transport and water, and poor human services related to education, health and hygiene.

They are predominantly agriculture-oriented. They have a great need to bring new technology to improve productivity without increasing unemployment. They have to find new jobs for their increasing population and to improve their standards of living.

In many developing nations, however, there is not enough political will, discipline, and desire to work to tackle some of these formidable problems on their own. Poor administration with no initiative, no innovation and no action is at the root of these problems.

In a developing nation, the government has a finger in almost every pie- invariably is the largest employer, the largest producer and the largest buyer.

It not only builds infrastructure like railways, communications, education, health and tourism but even manufactures bread and does these things most inefficiently It builds large monolithic structures that are over staffed, over equipped and over bureaucratized.

The inevitable result is the growth of vested interests, corruption- leakages, delays and distortions. Labour laws also are rigid and do not allow a system of incentives and disincentives that would help increase productivity. In consequence, mediocre elements flourish. Everyone, is interested only in self’ promotion and self-aggrandizement.

Development demands clarity of vision from people at the helm. Developmental programmes often suffer because projects are not well defined, there are no measurable, deliverable, tangible milestones for products and services, and dedicated, committed and knowledgeable people with appropriate funds to spend are scarce.

Even the few who are available are driven to frustration because of lack of flexibility and autonomy to implement and lack of trust and confidence to explore new frontiers.

With talented young information workers, it is essential to recognize that hierarchical management, bureaucratic controls, traditional work: environment and distrust of exploration will never deliver results.

To appreciate and apply the appropriate modern technology and tools to cater to the people need calls for initiative and the right attitude.

In developing nations, vested interests in collaboration with politicians and the bureaucracy are positioned to take advantage of large government contracts for foreign products without worrying about the infrastructure to support and maintain it. They creator conflicts and confusion to snuff out any initiative.

When the railway reservation system was sought to be computerized India, the labour unions strongly resisted it. Now that computerization has been successfully implemented, people appreciate the improvement in services. Even so, in banking and other areas computerization is being stiffly resisted.

The computer is used more as a calculator in an Indian bank than as a tool for electronic fund transfer. Resistance to technology and change would have been minimal in developing nations had they paid more attention to education and the service sector than to industry and its infrastructure.

Major dams, steel mills and large plants were considered fashionable in the days when these nations acquire d their independence, and they spent their financial resources on these mega projects. These projects did not create enough jobs. More important, they diverted attention from development of human resources.

If after independence, India had given the right priority to the prevention of infant mortality and eradication of female illiteracy, its population would have been no more than 650 million and not 850 million as of today.

Even today, many developing nations give more attention to higher education and industry than to literacy and health services. They spend more on university education than primary education because it is fashionable. Human services are still not seen as the service industry of the future.

The backlog in implementing minimum needs programmes is such that it can be made good only with a missionary zeal. The infrastructure for the mission will have to concentrate on new technology applications and information systems.

In operations, there will have to be a strong local and national political commitment to meet the targets, understanding of grass root realities, sound management.

Optimum use of modern technology tools, talents of intellectuals, professionals and technocrats, cooperation and linkages between the various agencies and increased communication and closed involvement of the people, especially youth and women.

Since most developing nations obtained their independence only recently, their political systems basically follow Western models- either the democratic system of America and Western Europe, or the socialist system of the erstwhile Eastern bloc, with minor modifications wherever there was a strong local leadership.

The economic systems they adopted, accordingly, were either that of free enterprise or centrally planned with some variations to mix and match, based on local conditions.

Many developing nations have three societies, related to agriculture, industry or information, all three thriving side by side. The information sector comprises people engaged in business, administration and bureaucracy. In India, their number is estimated to be almost 50 million, which is almost as big as the population of some European nations.

The agriculture sector, with the largest number of people, forms the backbone of almost ail developing nations. The prosperity of an agricultural society depends upon the availability of water, and of an industrial society, on energy.

An information society, similarly, needs communication and computers. To expedite the process of modernisation, things must be done in tandem and simultaneous developments provided in all the three areas.

Every nation begins its journey of development with predominantly traditional systems characterized by poor products and poor technologies. At this stage, most people are employed in agriculture and power is normally vested in the landlords.

The right kind of education, infrastructure, and institutions will put them on a developmental track. Along the way, they will encounter a great deal of resistance, conflicts and delays from the old guard within the system and various interested groups.

Before they reach the stage of mass consumption, they also have to learn to deal with modern technology, mass production, mass merchandizing and to develop appropriate human resources.

To be able to respond to the pressure of rapidly changing technology and management, developing nations need strong modem institutions. These institutions form the backbone of democratic functioning for law and order, defense, security- industry, commerce, education, technology and many other related activities.

The Western nations have far more experience in these matters because they started earlier. In advanced nations, institutions with firm foundations are built for ordinary citizens to function and flourish. Contrarily, in developing nations, because of poor institutional framework it is difficult even for an expert to function and survive.

In developing nations it is common to find institutions where doctors do not prescribe medicines, teachers do not teach, utilities behave erratically, and even essays on science and technology judges do not give judgments properly. People have developed ingenious ways of beating the system and making some quick money from government funds and programmes.

Good institutions are built by people with vision and values who have a sense of continuity and commitment. The founders of any institution have to be strong persons with imposing personality, for ultimately, they have to make these institutions work on their own steam.

The quality of any institution depends on the quality of its people, which in turn, depends on the quality of life. The quality of life in developing nations being what it is, where it takes so much time and energy just to survive, is bound to reflect on the institutions and their infrastructure.

Almost all modern technologies related to transport, communication, information, health and consumer products have come from Western nations. These technologies came to developing nations either through direct arrangements between government and multinationals or through private entrepreneurs and commission agents.

Most of these technologies are designed to bring in finished products or kits to assemble the products locally. For large vested interests and the import lobbies, signing collaboration with Western multinationals for technological know-how was an easy way to make quick money.

They had no interest in developing technology locally or in transferring it for future benefits. As a result, very little technological development took place locality. In many developing nations, traditional colonial practices still prevail, such as taxing finished goods at a lower rate and the components at a much higher rate.

This encourages people to import finished goods with value added abroad, instead of importing components to which values are added at home.

Some developing nations have emphasized on programmes to develop self- reliance in critical modern technologies. At times, the concept of self-reliance has been carried too far to prevent anything Western and useful from entering the system. In the name of self-reliance, people have spent years developing products and technologies which are obsolete and useless.

Self-reliance is needed in many developing nations to maximize values added at home, to create jobs locally, and to build an infrastructure of local talent. But self reliance does not mean closing the doors to foreign technology and investment. A country like India with 850 million people is bound to have at least eight million smart ones.

Thousands of new graduates are coming out every year in disciplines like computer science. It is important that India uses them effectively to develop products and services needed at home, instead of losing them to other nations.

For this, self-reliance in the technologies of tomorrow like communication, computers, software and information is extremely important.

Self reliance in these areas means buying the best available electronic devices from the world Market, such as the most powerful Micro-processor and the fastest memory devices to build products and systems at home to suit the local conditions.

In today’s fast-changing technological world, no country can achieve self-reliance in everything. Self-reliance does not mean isolation. It means cooperation of the right type. Earlier, technologies were capital-intensive and required a lot of equipment and machinery to build products and services.

Now, with soft technologies, where knowledge is an intensive party, the emphasis on self-reliance becomes even more important for developing nations like India and China where a great deal of potential software and mathematical talent is available.

Developing nations are now placing greater emphasis on science and technology and setting up more institutions to promote science. However, these institutions do not necessarily develop a scientific temper or a scientific culture.

They, at times, operate in isolation without proper linkages with universities or industries. They hardly appreciate customer needs and market demands. Take, for example, the postage stamp and the electric plug. In spite of there being thousands of capable chemists and adhesive experts in Indian laboratories, the Indian postage stamps never stick.

Similarly, though we have capable electric and mechanical engineers, the electric plug that the Indian companies manufacture never quite fits. In a market of scarcity, products of poor quality sell, because nothing else is available.

The scientific community in developing nations is normally small, fragmented, silent and ineffective, and is totally cut off from imports and applications of technology. Scientists may be kept in research activities funded by government or multinationals, but they are kept away from large-scale production and purchase decisions.

They thrive on presenting papers at international conferences than on bringing technology to the masses. The net consequence of this elitist attitude is that the products developed in these nations do not find large-scale applications or meet the international quality standards.

Today, more than ever before, developing nations are in dire need of technology to increase productivity. Because of the population pressure, they have to take to mass production and mass merchandising with more and more innovations to use less and less resources.

But these technologies are in the hands of Western nations, who today are trying very hard to block their coming to the market. They want to build more legal fences and cover up loopholes to protect intellectual property through patents, copyrights, trade marks, etc.

Pirated copyright material, including books, computers, software, hardware, films, cassette tapes, as well as watches and other high-tech consumer items eat into their lucrative profits and markets for expensive brand names and signature products. They know that piracy is alive end widespread in Asia and in many developing nations.

The struggle at the international level to protect the ever-increasing and complex intellectual properties is in recognition of the fact that a ‘soft war’ can be fought only by protecting knowledge, ideas and innovations. Developing nations are subjected to powerful pressures from the Western nations to respect their copyrights, patents and other instruments.

Recalcitrance is answered with threats of severe trade sanctions. The matter of intellectual property right will be the biggest cause for tension related to technological activities between the North and the South, during the next decade.

Most developing nations have a potential human resource in abundance. If not harnessed, it can prove to be a population time-bomb ticking away to blow up all developmental gains of this century. If harnessed well, it can be the most significant asset in the knowledge-intensive service society of the next century.

The populations in developing nations are young and still growing, while in advanced nations, they are old, ageing and decreasing. Many large developing nations like India, China and others have the advantage of numbers.

With their’ populations reaching the one billion mark, they are bound to have several million people with exceptional brain power.

Developing nations are still to realize the importance of human resource development (HRD) whereas all advanced nations and multinational companies recognize the importance of modern training and HRD.

They spend millions of dollars to retool the industries, and simultaneously retrain their people, to cope with changes in the workplace. In the modern world HRD requires an advanced technology with interactive capabilities to train people in key positions.

HRD relates to building up persons who would in turn work for building the nation. The key to harnessing this asset is to expedite development for the masses. Development of the human resource requires a minimum level of national literacy and a large amount of vocational training for a variety of routine jobs.

It has been proven beyond doubt that female literacy has a considerable impact on family planning and family welfare literacy also has links with modernization and development.

Unfortunately, in developing nations, when someone gets educated and trained, he desires to leave his roots in the village and move on to a more affluent urban life.

If he does well in the city, he wants to move on to metropolitan areas for even bigger and better opportunities and infrastructure. The affluent in metro cities start developing linkages with people abroad, and many ultimately leave the country when the opportunity arrives.

Many developing nations lose a great deal of brain power to the developed nations where ample opportunities exist for highly skilled manpower. In the United States, over 25 per cent of the work force engaged in technology-oriented activities comes from West Asia.

There are over 800,000 people of Indian origin in the US, with one of the highest income potentials in key positions in engineering, medicine and other professional fields. It is estimated that India has lost around $ 15 billion to advanced nations through brain drain. By the year 2000 this Position will get even worse.

In spite of the expensive brain drain, some administrations in developing nations hardly appreciate the value of brain gain. The returning expatriate experts are seen more as intruders into the bureaucratic system of perks and privileges. People are jealous of their affluence and accomplishments.

Many multinationals have recently deputed local expatriates to their nations of birth as executives and agents to build business. Even they find serious problem of re-entry and assimilation. In spite of their experience, expertise and enthusiasm they have not been very successful in the traditional work environment with old work methods and systems.

Such expatriates are one of the biggest assets developing nations have. They bring in fresh thinking, infectious enthusiasm, new technology, and new ways of doing things, and a view from “the distance which is detached, clear and more objective. Many new initiatives have been taken in the past by expatriates all over the world.

Even Gandhi, who spearheaded the movement to dislodge the British not only from the Indian subcontinent but also from Africa and other parts of the world, was an expatriate.

The expatriates will same day recognize the value of finding roots and come home to developing nations to help as new missionaries. Even their children, born more affluent than their parents, may turn their attention to their roots and cause a revolution of the kind that the white missionaries did centuries ago.

They may bring a new meaning to the message of modernisation in many developing nations, and generate unprecedented growth and prosperity. They are the true explorers to watch for.

If leaders in developing nations do not wake up to this and other realities, and if they do not change and adopt some radical economic reforms, they will be left behind with a primitive production base and obsolete technology and products.

It is to be hoped that developing nations will also learn from the peace initiative of the super powers and divert part of their defense expenditure to the social sector. The silver lining in all this awakening alliances and conflicts is the opportunity for a wakening among developing nations.

Those of them which have hitherto benefited from the support of and funds from the international communities and Western allies will now realize the need for standing on their own feet.

They will learn to develop alternative plans to attract and update their technology and improve their resource base for meeting their people’s basic human needs through modernization.