Out-of-date innovation policy is undermining unprecedented opportunities for development aid to improve the environment and combat global poverty, according to a new Manifesto published today. We live in an era of rapid scientific advance yet poverty is deepening, the environment is in crisis and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals has stalled.
In the report, Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto, researchers at the UK's STEPS Centre argue a radical and urgent shift in the global innovation agenda is needed to ensure the future success of development initiatives. A shift not only in scientific innovation – or new ways of doing things – but in related ideas, institutions and practices.
At this month's G8 summit in Canada world leaders' attempts to kick-start a global economic recovery may mean the maintenance of their commitments to the poor take a back seat. However innovation can offer a vital key to not only economic growth, but to poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability as well. The Manifesto offers a series of practical recommendations to deliver more effective, transparent and accountable policies that help empower those most in need.
"Meeting the interlinked global challenges of poverty reduction, social justice and environmental sustainability is the great moral and political imperative of our age," said Professor Andy Stirling, co-director of the STEPS Centre.
"Our vision is a world where science and technology work more directly for social justice, poverty alleviation and the environment. We want the benefits of innovation to be widely shared, not captured by narrow, powerful interests. This means reorganising innovation in ways that involve diverse people and groups – going beyond the technical elites to harness the energy and ingenuity of users, workers, consumers, citizens, activists, farmers and small businesses," said Professor Stirling.
To achieve this vision, the Manifesto makes recommendations across five areas for action: agenda-setting; funding; capacity-building; organizing; and monitoring, evaluation and accountability.
Recommendations include: (Full list in Areas for Action section of the Manifesto).
Global annual spending on research and development exceeds a trillion dollars, with military as the single largest expenditure. Yet every day more than a billion people go hungry, 4,000 children die from waterborne diseases and a thousand women die in pregnancy and childbirth.
Science, technology and innovation are crucial in combating poverty and environmental catastrophe, but a shift away from private profit and military aims towards more diverse and fairly distributed forms of innovation geared towards greater social justice, is urgently needed.
Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto is launched on the 40th anniversary of the 'Sussex Manifesto', written for the UN by researchers from the STEPS Centre's home institutions of the Institute of Development Studies and SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research at the UK's University of Sussex.
NOTES TO EDITOR:
THE STEPS CENTRE (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) is a major interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement hub uniting development studies with science and technology studies. We aim to develop a new approach to understanding, action and communication on sustainability and development. The STEPS Centre is collaboration between the Institute of Development Studies and SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Sussex with a network of partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Find out more at www.steps-centre.org and follow updates from STEPS on Twitter (@stepscentre).
The ESRC The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC's planned total expenditure in 2009/10 is £204 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes. You can also follow updates from the ESRC on Twittter (@ESRC).
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Julia Day, STEPS Centre communications manager Office: +44 (0)1273 915671 / Mobile: +44 (0)7974 209148 / Email: j.day@ids.ac.uk