Marnie M.

David
EnM 225 Seminar in Technology Development & Management

Topic 3 Stakeholders in Technology Development and Management

The motivation for technology assessment would be somewhat different for a

developing country than for a fully industrialized country, depending on its particular stage of
development. In the first place, a developing country would face some of the cumulative
environmental and resource depletion consequences of the previous development of the
industrialized world, example global environmental impacts such as global warming and
stratospheric ozone depletion, or the exhaustion of the most accessible reserves of
nonrenewable resources. Also, in many cases the local environment is already overstressed by
population densities and degrees of urbanization that have no precedent in the earlier history
of the present industrialized world at a corresponding stage of its historical development.
Offsetting this is the fact that the presently developing countries have access, at least
potentially, to many modern technologies, such as biotechnology and information technology,
that may allow them to bypass many of the development stages that the industrialized world
had to go through. Furthermore, the expectations of these populations for quality of life,
especially in terms of environmental amenities are and will remain considerably lower than
those of industrialized country populations, at least for a generation or so. On the other hand,
environmental quality necessary to sustaining productivity of the biosphere for human use is
likely to be a more urgent requirement in developing countries than in developed countries.
What this means is that the concept of "environmentally sound technology" or even
sustainable development may mean something quite different in developing and developed
countries, with productivity considerations playing a larger role in developing countries and
ethical, aesthetic, and psychological considerations playing a larger role in the industrialized
countries. Since a larger proportion of economic activities in developing countries than in
industrialized countries are sensitive to the state of the environment. Whereas failure of
foresight may lead to loss of quality of life in industrialized countries, the same lack of foresight
could lead to social and economic catastrophe in a country at an earlier stage of development.
Increasingly, scientific matters are becoming dependent on government support and policies -
and so are no longer the researchers' preserve. Science and technology have become both
more noticeable because of their repercussions and more open to scrutiny because of the
public money invested in them. Public opinion is now more aware of government influence on
the direction of national efforts and of the role government can play in regulating technical
change. Just as some national commissions have been set up in certain countries to examine
the relationship between information technology and privacy, others have been created to
discuss the ethical issues of biotechnological research.
Many governments have taken on the new task of carrying out the research and analysis
that is needed for technology assessment in the full sense, and in fact more energetically than
has the private sector on its own with only market evaluation and competition as the spur. The
aim is not only to foresee the consequences of technical changes without stifling innovation,
but also to provide the basic understanding, procedures, and institutional mechanisms for
regulating the conditions of competition between firms or between countries, taking into
account the long-term effects of such changes.
The idea that society should exercise some control over the consequences of technical
change stems from the very successes of the scientific and industrial enterprise, and the costs
that these have sometimes entailed. The issue of government's responsibility as regards
regulation of technical change is a thorny one; the criticisms levelled at government
intervention tend either not to recognize or to minimize the responsibility. However, if the
debate is about policy issues rather than technical matters, governments can help answer the
key question of whether the cost-benefit ratio is or is not in the collective interest, and this is,
for the developing countries as much as for the industrialized ones, what is at stake in the
process of technology assessment.