South Asian collaboration
in sustainable development research has been held hostage by internal and
trans-boundary conflicts, a conference heard.
"Shifting (the) focus
of federal policies of the regional governments from mere political agendas to
science, research and technological advancement is critical for sustainable
development," Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director, Sustainable
Development Policy Institute, an Islamabad-based non-governmental organisation
(NGO), told the conference this month (13-15 December).
Poor collaboration among policymakers
and scientists, coupled with insufficient technological advancement in South
Asian countries, remain major stumbling blocks to fighting socioeconomic
maladies, Suleri observed.
Sabina Alkire, director,
Oxford Department of International Development, told SciDev.Net: "It has been observed
that bilateral or multilateral talks focus only on political agendas while
interstate collaboration in scientific knowhow, research and technology
transfer are hardly on the agendas."
"It does give (an)
impression of how indifferent the governments are to the significance of
collaboration." There is a need for "a paradigm shift " in
agendas from political goals to science and research collaboration and sharing
advanced technologies, she remarked.
Peter Taylor, programme
specialist at Canada’s
International Development Research Centre, observed that while policymakers’
access to quality, objective information generated through independent research
was crucial, in most South Asian countries, this is produced outside national policy
contexts.
"Such collaboration
gaps must be plugged by the governments themselves to develop and implement
policies in the light of results of scientific research that would help lead to
more equitable, prosperous societies," he stressed.
Eak Bahadur Rana Magar,
project coordinator at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain
Development, said that the benefits of technology and access to technology have
not reached a huge number of the poor in the region.
Magar added that market
pressures and the needs of developed countries, rather than those of poor
countries, influenced technology development and dissemination.
Bipul Chatterjee, deputy
executive director at the Consumer Unity and Trust Society International, an
NGO based in Jaipur, said that over the last several years India has made
great strides in science and technology.
He listed medicine, water
conservation, renewable energy, high-yield crops, astronomy and computation as
areas in which India
has made progress that can be shared in the region.
"These technologies
and relevant scientific and technological knowhow can be transferred to other
regional countries if better collaborative science and technology policies are
implemented," he said.
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