New technologies

In all of its Human Development Reports so far, the UNDP has provided each year a wide-ranging analysis of a particular theme, considered to be critical to human development. This year's focus is on technology, with the searchlight placed on how people "create and use technology to improve their lives." More specifically, the report concentrates on how the "new technologies will affect developing countries and poor people."

At the start of this series, it was stated that, much of the dynamism and distinctive character of globalisation stemmed from the unprecedented growth of new technologies and the manner of their application. While these new technologies cover a wide span of human activities, they are concentrated in five areas. These are: information and communications technology, biotechnology, new materials, transportation, and social organizational technology. The latter includes revolutionary changes in enterprise management, the rapid emergence of new social forms in civil society, and advances in governance. Some of these new technologies, like information and social organization, are vital inputs into all economic activities.

Technology as tool

While technology plays a variety of roles in human society, technology per se is an inanimate object or process. To use an overworked example, technology is a tool or instrument. As such, it is, in a literal sense, "socially neutral." However, technology is created by persons and institutions, and therefore the purposes to which it is put cannot be meaningfully separated from those who control and direct its use.

The Human Development Report 2001 explores the potentially positive uses of the new technologies for promoting human development. It is important, however, that we do not ignore, as the report tends to do, the dramatic evidence of the destructive purposes for which they have been used. These technologies have been applied as instruments of war and violent social conflict. They have been used so indiscriminately in economic production, as to contribute to the "fraying web of life," which we examined a few weeks ago when we considered the impact of globalisation on the earth's ecosystems.

Technology and growth

The UNDP makes the useful observation that the relationship between technology and economic growth can be mutually self-reinforcing. On the one hand, economic growth and increasing incomes expand our opportunities for access to technology. We see this in Guyana every day. Those persons whose incomes increase can afford to have internet service, cellular phones, modern travel, and improved access to health facilities. On the other hand, evidence from a number of countries points out that investments in technology can lead to better economic growth. This happens because the new technologies equip people with better tools and enhance their skills, and consequently their productivity.

Again we see this in Guyana. Giglioli's medical breakthrough, which led to the containment of malaria did much to improve the efficiency of our agriculture, particularly the main staple crops, rice and sugar. The use of refrigeration has expanded the range of goods we have available at all times in the country. The use of fertilizers, treatment systems for our domestic water supply, and recently the computer, have all had incalculable effects on our economy. We can therefore support the claim from Guyana's perspective that "technology is a tool, not just a reward for growth and development."

Technology as change

Two features of globalisation, that we have repeatedly stressed in this series are pertinent to an evaluation of the role of technology today. One is that globalisation not only represents change in almost every sphere of human existence, but that this change is exceedingly rapid and highly compressed over time. Change, as we are all aware, always brings both risks and opportunities. Technological change is no different in this regard. Except that, given how rapid and intense it is, the risks and opportunities are correspondingly greater.

The risks of technological change apply at all levels. For the globe as a whole, there is the threat of ecosystem collapse. For nations there is the fear that if they do not participate in the process they will be marginalised and made to suffer. For enterprises operating in global markets, their capacity to innovate new products and processes is the single most important indication of their prosperity and survivability. Not surprisingly, there is the fear in many quarters that the new technologies will lead to the further marginalisation of poor countries and poor people everywhere.

Technology and inequality

The other feature of globalisation that has been repeatedly stressed in this series is its intrinsic tendency towards inequality. Because globalisation is twinned with liberalisation (a market driven process) private markets are the main social location for its effects. Private markets are concerned with private welfare as expressed in the maximisation of output, based on individual gains or profits, and consumption optimisation, based on individual consumer choice. Markets are not concerned with removing poverty or promoting balanced development as ends in themselves. To attain these, requires social and political intervention into the operation of markets.

Already the evidence of a growing inequality in the distribution of the gains and benefits of technology is striking. This is similar to the growing inequality and widening gaps, which we have reported for global wealth, output, incomes, consumption, and trade. The UNDP however, is optimistic that the "technology divide does not have to follow the income divide." As we shall see, in our later discussion of this topic, for this to occur, it would require a fundamental restructuring of the world as we know it, and the emergence of a new paradigm of development supported by an alternative value-system to that which presently dominates world development.