Technofixes with a sugar coating

By Ashish Kothari

DELIGHT FOR the technocrat and the multinational corporation, dismay and disappointment for the advocate of justice and sustainability in human development. That, in a nutshell, sums up the latest Human Development Report (HDR) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Though sugar-coated with politically correct language on equity and ethics, the HDR 2001 is, deep down, an unashamed pat on the back for the hi-tech bandwagon on which a minority of powerful elites are galloping to even greater riches, even more power.

Over the last couple of years, the HDR had become a welcome ally of those fighting for greater justice and freedom, for greater equity amongst and within nations. Under Mahbub-ul-Haq, the UNDP had become a worry for the votaries of the so-called `free market' (read: unfettered access of private capital to the resources and labour of the whole world).

This year, the Monsantos and the Bushes of the world need no longer lose sleep on account of the UNDP. Its verdict is clear: the hi-tech world of information technology and biotechnology is the saviour of millions of poor, starving, desperate people in the `developing' countries.

Though the HDR admits that modern technologies should not be viewed as `silver bullets' that can by themselves bring meaningful development to people, it nevertheless focusses predominantly on promoting such technologies. It claims that the benefits of such technologies will reach the poor if they are rooted in a ``pro-poor development strategy'', but does not lay much stress on what such a strategy will need to have. At various points, it talks of how the `savage' inequalities existing in the world could stop the benefits of new technologies reaching the poor, but does not take this further to its logical conclusion: that true welfare of the underprivileged and oppressed sections of human societies will require economic and social policies that emanate from people themselves, technologies that build on their own capacities and knowledge, rather than bringing in alien ones, community and people's control over the natural and economic resources necessary for life and livelihoods, and sincere political decentralisation. Yet, none of these get central focus in the HDR.

Though at times advocating the need to ensure that people have a choice and are not saddled with one global formula, the biases towards only one model of technology are clear in some revealing sentences. It exhorts, for instance, `developing' countries to take action for ``bridging the technological divide and becoming full participants in the modern world''. It advocates that ``farmers and firms need to master new technologies developed elsewhere to stay competitive in global markets''. In so doing, it completely and amazingly ignores the scores of technological alternatives to hi-tech and bio-tech that have been developed by people, ordinary people, around the world, including in agriculture, medicine, industry, and energy.

Such biases are seen in its advocacy of biotechnology, for instance. It commends Bt cotton technology for reducing the amount of pesticide sprays from 30 (for conventional cotton) to 3, and enabling greater production in countries like China. This completely ignores the fact that hundreds of farmers in India alone have developed organic cotton production techniques that use no pesticides at all, and yet produce high quantities, and in ways that are economically more profitable since input costs are very low.

The report honestly describes the enormous risks associated with genetic engineering, and even suggests that it is wrong to posit only a choice between conventional technologies and biotechnologies, since organic farming is also available. Yet it does not anywhere even examine, let alone advocate, organic or natural farming technologies. The HDR actually suggests that `developing' countries can ill-afford to ignore biotechnologies and chemical technologies under the argument that these are risky and dangerous! It chides Europe and the U.S. for pushing debates on the safety of genetically modified crops and foods, on to poor countries, completely ignoring the growing concern and opposition to these technologies from the marginal and small farmers of the `developing' countries. It indirectly suggests that such farmers cannot `afford' environmental safety!

In its advocacy of strong policy measures to contain the risks of the new technologies, and ensure that their benefits reach the poor, the HDR is on strong ground. Unfortunately, it does not take this analysis far enough, in asking: who will push for these measures? Surely not Governments, who have so far ignored them? It will have to be very strong ground-level mobilisation of affected people and communities, truly bottom- up pressure, that would assure such policy changes. Yet the technologies that can facilitate such community empowerment, such as organic farming and decentralised energy sources, are ignored in this report, and the technologies that can only further alienate people, such as complex biotechnology, are pushed! This is double-speak of a sophisticated, but nevertheless transparent, nature.

Technofixes are carried to the extreme in parts of the HDR. For instance, at one point the report honestly admits the modernisation of agriculture has destroyed on-farm diversity of crops. Yet its solution? International gene banks that can store such diversity! Surely the writers of the report are well aware that farmer-level security cannot be achieved by cold storage of seeds in some faraway place, but only by actual use and control over seed diversity on their farms?

The report recognises that the market will not always favour the development of technologies that suit the poor, and that therefore public sector funding must continue and be increased. Yet, it does not seem to recognise the contradictions in its approach.

It mentions the need to be `fair' in implementing Intellectual Property Regimes, and even admits that many communities do not favour such regimes at all. Yet, it strongly advocates the continuation of universal regimes that will provide protection to formal knowledge systems. It does mention that informal systems exist, that indigenous knowledge systems are found, but does not place these at the centre of its recommendations. Its Technology Achievement Index (on which India places a lowly 63), is based entirely on modern technologies developed in the formal sector. This completely ignores the thousands of diffused technological innovations that take place in countries such as India.

One may well ask, why this sudden shift away from the radically pro-poor, pro-sustainability arguments of the previous one or two HDRs? The answer is not clear, but two elements can be hinted at. The change in leadership of the UNDP, into the hands of an ex- World Bank official. Perhaps more important, the pact that the U.N. as a whole entered into last year (the `Global Compact'), with some of the world's biggest multinational corporations, allowing such corporations the freedom to use U.N. legitimacy in return for some vague promises of social and environmental reform.

The above reasons are admittedly speculatory. But they are lent weight by the sugar-coated but clear bias in the HDR towards private capital, corporations, and the profit-motive. Listen to this: ``The broader challenge for public, private and non-profit decision-makers is to agree on ways to segment the global market so that key technology products can be sold at low cost in developing countries without destroying markets - and industry incentives - in industrial countries''. So now, public good has to bend itself to suit private profit!

(The writer is a founder-member of Kalpavriksh, a 21-year old environmental action group, and currently coordinator of the technical core group formulating India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.)

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