Technological fixes

IN MORE THAN a decade of publication, the annual Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme has usually steered clear of controversy while making out a case for expanding the understanding and measurement of development beyond the traditional approaches of increasing the gross domestic product of an economy. In the 2001 HDR, however, the UNDP has managed to anger its ``traditional'' support base of citizens' groups and organisations critical of the dominant development paradigm by suggesting, first, that modern technology can offer solutions to many of the problems of the developing countries and, second, that the benefits of biotechnology and transgenic crops probably outweigh the risks, especially when it comes to meeting the challenges of increasing food production.

To be fair to the HDR, it is explicit in its argument that technology is not a silver bullet for removal of poverty. Yet, if there is one running strand in the 2001 report it is that the advances in modern technology combined with the forces of globalisation - constituting the ``networked society'' - offer the developing countries an opportunity to leap-frog out of poverty. Unfortunately, the understanding of technology is a very restrictive one, with the discussion confined to information and communication technologies, biotechnology and in a very limited fashion to advances in medicine. Besides, there is little that the HDR offers beyond a few historical examples to suggest that these new technologies by themselves will do much more for development than innumerable other technological advances of the past. As the report itself notes, many of the benefits of older technologies are yet to be distributed as illustrated, for example, in the fact that a third of the world's population is still without electricity and two billion people do not have access to low-cost essential medicines. The UNDP study does argue that in biotechnology, as in other technologies, there is a need to weigh the benefits against the risks. But all the careful language does not hide the case that is made, in particular, for a more open welcome to transgenic crops in the developing countries. Yet, as the report itself notes, many of the world's national scientific academies have asked for a ``thorough risk assessment'' of the consequences of development of transgenic crop varieties. A more explicit and potentially more dangerous argument contained in the HDR is that the standards of risk and safety are different in rich and poor countries. That is, while consumers in the advanced countries can afford to worry about the safety of transgenic crops, the citizens of the developing countries cannot afford to do so because their first priority is food. Safety concerns in a variety of areas in the developed societies on occasion are indeed taken to unreasonable and unrealistic levels. But more generally the relevant question is, are basic standards of safety breached by certain technologies? It cannot be that there must be lax standards for poor societies and another set of stricter standards for the rich societies.

The HDR 2001 contains, as usual, the latest measures of the human development index for most countries in the world. The picture over the longer term, since 1975, shows substantial progress in some, retrogression in a fairly large number and an unsatisfactory pace of growth in most countries in the developing world. The HDR's appraisal reveals a mixed record so far on the very modest United Nations goals for development for the year 2015 in income, health and education. In some areas (hunger and education), more countries are on track than falling behind in meeting the targets for 2015. In others, (infant, child and maternal mortality and access to safe water), the reverse is true because of an extremely slow pace of improvement.

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