Which technologies most benefit poor women and men?

An ITDGPractical Action special response to the Human Development Report 2001

link to media coverage
news release
download background briefing from ITDGPractical Action
questioning the technologies in the HDR - ICTs, biotech and energy
download ITDGPractical Action's formal policy response to UNDP
in black and white ~44kb
or pdf ~132kb
ITDGPractical Action case studies relevant to the HDR
link to UNDP website for HDR

Read ITDGPractical Action's background briefing here
use the links in the introduction to go to section headings

HDR fails real challenge - enabling poor people to make technologies work for them

Revolutionary changes in technology are driving forwards globalisation. But globalisation is creating greater inequalities than at any time in history.

A key question for the 21st century, therefore, is: will technology entrench millions in even greater poverty - or can it be used to eradicate poverty and suffering?

ITDGPractical Action welcomes the Human Development Report 2001 as a vital and powerful first contribution which can inform a new worldwide debate.

But the HDR reflects old thinking about new technologies.

It does not subject technology options to the 'three As' test: from the point of view of poor people, are they:

Affordable - to people living on $1 a day
Accessible - to people in marginal communities in developing countries
Appropriate - meaning is it adapted to their social, economic and cultural needs; is it environmentally sustainable; and can it be made, developed and managed by local people and their institutions?

What is required is new thinking about all technologies which are of use to poor people - whether those technologies are 'old' or 'new'. This means starting with poor people and what they need from technology - not starting with technologies and 'applying' them to 'poverty'.

It means building the capacity of poor women and men to choose and use technology; to adapt, develop and improve it; and to manage it sustainably over time. Without addressing these factors, no technology can be successfully 'applied' to their livelihoods.

Policy frameworks to achieve this must be local, not just global.
From this perspective the HDR's concentration on 'new' technologies and global policy frameworks fails the key challenge - enabling poor people to make technologies work for them.

This paper details ITDGPractical Action's critique of the HDR 2001 and makes five recommendations.

Old thinking, false assumptions

The HDR reflects old thinking about new technologies. It starts with the technologies, not with the people and their environment. It assumes a model of technology transfer in which a technology is researched and developed far from its potential application and then taken out and 'diffused' to tackle poverty.

It assumes that this transfer of the 'new' technologies is both practical and desirable (for example, it does not question the as yet unproven benefits of biotechnology in agriculture). It assumes that 'countries' make these technology choices.

Despite analysing some technologies which are 'old' but have still to diffuse to poor people it has no answer as to why this should be so. Some transforming technologies which clearly reduce poverty include: electricity, still not available to two billion people; technology for safe water supply, still denied to one billion people; and adequate sanitation, which over two billion still lack.

How can we be sure that, for example, information and communications technologies will not meet the same fate particularly when one third of humanity has yet to use a telephone? What are the barriers to people's access to technology, and how can they be tackled?

The three 'A's test -- affordable, accessible and appropriate?

The barriers to technology diffusion are best understood by using the three As analysis. The grassroots partners of ITDGPractical Action - poor women and men - would look at any technology option and consider whether it is:

Affordable - to people living on $1 a day
Accessible - to people in marginal communities in developing countries
Appropriate - meaning is it adapted to their social, economic and cultural needs; is it environmentally sustainable; and can it be made, developed and managed by local people and their institutions?

The 'new' technologies are not immediately affordable or accessible to poor people. And there are serious questions about their appropriateness.

Affordability: New technologies developed for and within rich countries are not easily affordable to people surviving on $1 a day. The HDR itself vividly illustrates the distorted priorities and injustices of new scientific and technological development within a liberalised framework for trade and investment - static levels of public sector R&D and a rapidly growing dominance of private sector R&D, almost all of it in OECD countries and addressing rich men's desires and anxieties, not poor women's suffering.

Accessibility: Even could they afford them, poor people may find new technologies inaccessible. They may require extensive existing infrastructure, such as power and telecommunications, which do not exist in poor communities. Or they presuppose a high level of education, skills and training in the user. Or information about them is not available locally. Or there is no development of back-up services for the products such as computer software or replacement photovoltaic cells.

Appropriateness: Technology developed at a great distance and for other markets is unlikely to meet the local needs of poor and often isolated communities. Agricultural biotechnology, for instance, is specifically targeted at medium or large scale commercial farmers. By encouraging dependence on single seed varieties, it might drastically undermine the livelihoods of smallholder farmers who need a range of locally adapted varieties as a hedge against specific risks such as rain failure or pest infestation.

Even 'appropriate technology', where it has not been actively developed in partnership with the users, will fail. Solar cookers, for example, are simple, efficient and low cost alternatives to traditional biomass fuels. But they have not been adopted by local people -- whose labour patterns in their fields and markets do not fit with spending the main part of the daylight hours cooking.

Some new technologies may be adaptable to pass the three As test - but as yet the proof is slim - see 'questioning the technologies in the HDR'.

So the technology question must be widened - if technology is to benefit poor people, what is really required is new thinking on all technologies which they can potentially use.

Need for new thinking on all technologies

By contrast to the HDR, ITDGPractical Action proposes that technology will only solve problems of poverty if we start from the people, and what they need from technologies.

With the decline in economic and political power of the nation state, 'countries' rarely can choose technologies, except in a general policy sense. It is people, not countries, who make technology choices.

The focus of the 21st century technology debate should therefore not be falsely restricted to 'new' technologies, but should include all technologies of use to poor people.

Some brief examples:

1.3 billion poor people lacking adequate shelter could benefit from appropriate building technologies - the report has nothing to say on this

800 million poor people working in agriculture cannot afford biotechnology - they can benefit from low external input sustainable agriculture, a proven set of technologies which the report does not consider

2 billion people lack efficient energy supply - they can benefit both from improved technologies for using biomass fuels (mainly wood), and from small scale decentralised renewable energy services

up to 75 per cent of the population in developing countries do not have formal sector employment - most work as small scale producers and traders in their fields and workshops, in their homes and on the streets, and can benefit enormously from incremental improvements to their manufacturing and processing techniques - the report does not consider the need for this local, incremental 'R&D'

hundreds of millions of people live in marginal or remote communities without decent transport - they can benefit from low cost alternative modes of transport which enable them to access 'hubs' of markets and services - the report does not consider these barriers to access

The 'opportunity costs' of neglecting these low cost technologies in favour of untested (and, in the case of biotechnology, potentially damaging) 'new' technologies may be critical.

Building the capacities of poor women and men

The 35 years experience of ITDGPractical Action and many others in the 'appropriate technology movement' is that any opening up of technology options ('old' or 'new'), requires technology to be seen not only as technical hardware and software, but as a process comprising other variables such as information and knowledge, skills and training, organisational and management capacity, and the use of markets.

New technologies will only 'transfer', and other existing technologies be adapted and improved, if there is:

genuine partnership with poor people and their local institutions
the participation of poor people in identifying their technical needs and solutions
research, testing and analysis of technology options by poor women and men; and
a considerable strengthening of the capacities of poor people and their institutions to control and manage technologies sustainably over time

Without addressing these factors, no technology can be successfully 'applied' to poor people's livelihoods.

Policy frameworks - local versus global

This means a strong emphasis on local policies and services to assist small scale producers - complementing the global focus of the HDR.

While the HDR makes some very valuable recommendations for policies at the global level, these will have little relevance or effect unless accompanied by powerful new thinking on the use of technology at the local level.

This will require much more investment by multilateral agencies, donor governments and developing country governments in demonstration projects to assess how to build poor people's technological capacities.

It will then require commitment to expand upon the best of these local lessons on a widespread scale.

It will require the political will to enter partnerships with poor people, their associations and institutions, and to remove the barriers in their way.

ITDGPractical Action's recommendations

ITDGPractical Action welcomes the HDR's clarion call for new action on the role of technology in development. It welcomes many of the global policy recommendations made by the report.

In addition ITDGPractical Action would recommend that:

1. All technologies of potential use to poor people are considered in global and national technology strategies - not just the 'new' technologies. Which will be most sustainable, and create the biggest benefits?

2. The most important efforts of multilateral agencies, donor governments and developing country governments should be directed towards building the technological capacities of poor people - and particularly women, who are 70 per cent of the poor, and whose technological contributions are usually overlooked.

3. Many more 'intermediary' organisations, who can help poor women and men to expand their technology choices, should be stimulated and funded - appropriate technology institutes, NGOs, local authorities, and associations of small producers, for example.

4. On Research and Development, the new international partnerships recommended by the HDR should specifically aim to create greater developing country capacity for R&D; and at national level, public funds should be used to support low-income and marginalised technology users to undertake incremental R&D

5. The local and traditional knowledge which is one of the greatest technological assets of poor people should be protected by:

allowing local people more control of natural resources;
keeping natural resources in the public domain, especially the genetic resources for food and agriculture which poor people themselves have developed;
developing alternative property rights regimes that protect communal and traditional knowledge; and
subjecting the WTO's TRIPs agreement to a serious review with regard to its poverty and environmental impacts, independently of any new trade round.