Science and Innovation for Development
Available to download now for free.
We would like to announce the launch of Science and Innovation for Development co-authored by Gordon Conway and Jeff Waage with Sara Delaney, published by UKCDS.
In Science and Innovation for Development, Conway and Waage take on the topic of the crucial role that science can play in the challenge of poverty reduction – with science acting as lever for change through both research and knowledge generation for policy guidance, and the development of innovative and appropriate technologies.
See a write-up of the launch by LIDC's Guy Collender: ‘Academics Urge Governments to Listen to Scientists to Tackle Poverty in Poor Countries,' and a review of the book in the journal The Lancet by Anthony Costello.
The authors make the following five key recommendations to policy makers and development practitioners:
- Train and empower scientists;
- Strengthen science innovation systems in developing countries;
- Ensure that new technologies are accessible to science for development;
- Design and deliver research for impact;
- Raise the profile of science in governments.
Science and Innovation for Development looks at the importance of national scientific capacity, the different sources from which new science and technologies can be drawn, and the ever-expanding role of partnerships between stakeholders.
The book uses the Millennium Development Goals as a framework, pulling out three key topics for which science plays an important role – reducing hunger, improving health, and achieving environmental sustainability. The authors highlight the current challenges in each area, look at how scientific innovation has helped thus far, and consider in what areas further research or new, improved technologies are needed. These ideas are illustrated through a broad range of case studies from across the developing world.
For example, in the chapter on hunger, Conway and Waage argue that science for sustainable agriculture needs to focus on five broad needs:
- New crop varieties (and livestock breeds) that are more productive and of better nutritional quality;
- Improved soil fertility and crops and livestock better able to use existing nutrients;
- Maximising water use;
- Better pest, disease and weed control without environmental damage;
- Cropping and livestock systems that combine these qualities in ways that bring benefits to both small and large farmers.
They emphasise that solutions for these needs should be drawn from the full range of sources for innovation, including conventional, traditional, intermediate and new platform technologies.
Finally, the authors explore the challenge of climate change, looking both what we do and do not know and how science can help to inform policy and make mitigation and adaptation possible.
Chris Whitty, Chief Scientific Advisor for DFID, has said ‘This book should be required reading for those who doubt the power of science to transform the lives of the poorest in the world, and show those undertaking research how much of a difference they can make if they address the major questions of developing countries.'
The book is available for order or download at no cost from www.ukcds.org.uk
