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| Science and Technology (S&T) have long been seen as key for development. This paper considers the issues of capacity building in the ight of recent reconceptualization of the role of science and technology in development. Reconceptualization suggests that science and technology are better seen as key elements of innovation systems, which are themselves the means of gaining value from knowledge creation: and, that innovation, knowledge and development are tightly knit elements of a system of organisations and institutions that must function coherently for improved knowledge and innovation systems to emerge. Developing such systems requires linkages of many types. The paper describes and discusses the conceptual basis for capacity building interventions, using partnership-based capacity building initiatives in new agricultual technologies from Mali and Egypt. The empirical analysis from both countries shows evidence of research capcity building in the form of recruitment, training of scientific staff and provision of research infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, given the S&T knowledge base, the Malian case illustrates the difficulty of moving beyond basic forms of research capacity building. In Egypt, with significantS&T capacity, there is evidence of organizational and institutional innovation towards broader knowledge, and innovation system development in agri-biotechnology. The role of partnerships and governments as 'systems-builder' are shown to be important. Lessons are drawn from these (and other) cases about the relationships between partnerships, S&T and innovation capacity building. | Seife Ayele
David Wield | Journal of International Development 17, 631-646 | Last Updated - 5th January 2006 |
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| This article discusses the successful generation, development and delivery of the Egyptian Bt biopesticide known as 'Agerin'. Two interlinked processes are identified. The first is the transfer of public research knowledge to the private sector, initated and supported by a new institutional arrangement for patenting and transferring public research. The implications of these developments on biotechnology are examined. The second process is the incorporation of the biopesticide Agerin, the 'hard' innovation, into what is regarded as the 'soft' innovation process, the integrated pest management system (IPM). Through IPM, and within the public sector, optimum conditions for the application of Agerin were created and the product was delivered to farmers. Extension workers played key roles in selecting and demonstrating Agerin itself (its efficacy, and harmlessness to human health and the environment) added to its appeal. The complex interplay between public and private institutions also contributed to the development, transfer and adoption of the product. The analysis of this case study provides insights into how biotechnology breakthroughs can be delivered in developing countries. | Siefe Ayele | International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development, 4 (2), 75-91 | Last Updated - 5 January 2006 |
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| This paper examines public engagement with routine vaccination delivery, and vaccine trials and related medical research, in The Gambia. Its approach is rooted in social and medical anthropology and ethnographic methods, but combines insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge, and ‘actor-oriented” sociology in development. Current analysis and professional reflection on public engagement with vaccination reflects the concepts and imperatives of health-providing and research institutions. In contrast Gambian parents’ perspectives are couched in very different conceptual and experiential terms, linked to the wider dilemmas of raising infants in a hazardous world. In this context the paper traces parents’ experiences of routine infant welfare clinics and then how they narrate their experiences with two vaccine related studies orchestrated by the Medical Research Council laboratories. A range of contrasts emerges. Whereas health professionals tend to attribute vaccination acceptance to the acquisition of modern scientific attitudes, and talk of “defaulters” as misinformed, parents understand vaccination as a complement to other forms of infant therapy and protection and miss vaccinations through a combination of contingent circumstances and specific worries about vaccination delivery practices. Most parents consider medical research studies less as a separate “scientific” activity than as part of the nexus of normal health practices, and their longer-term experiences and perceptions of MRC as an institution matter more than the aims of any particular study. Whereas medical research staff often perceive public engagement as a matter of understanding or misunderstanding aims and procedures, or of trust and distrust, parental narratives reveal research engagement as a balance of danger and benefit. Study participation depends more on how people’s particular calculus is shaped by social and gender relations, than on issues of knowledge or trust.
| James Fairhead
Melissa Leach
Mary Small | IDS Working Papers 218, 2004 | Last Updated - 11 January 2005 |
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| In the context of the high-profile controversy that has unfolded in the UK around the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and its possible adverse effects, this paper addresses how parents in Brighton are thinking about MMR for their own children. Research focusing on parents’ engagement with MMR has been dominated by analysis of the proximate influences on their choices, and in particular scientific and media information, guiding policy to focus on information and education. The ethnographic work in Brighton reported in this paper, to be complemented by survey work, begins to question the validity of such reasoning by showing how wider personal and social issues shape parents’ immunisation actions. Extended parental narratives show how parents’ practices around MMR are shaped by their personal histories, by birth experiences and related feelings of control, by family health histories, by their readings of their child’s health and particular strengths and vulnerabilities, by particular engagements with health services, by processes of confidence-building and undermining, and by friendships and conversations with others, which are themselves shaped by wider social differences and transformations. “MMR talk” has become a social phenomenon. Many see vaccination as a personal decision which must respond to the particularities of a child’s immune system. These perspectives both challenge key tenets of public health policy, and suggest ways in which people’s engagements with MMR reflect wider changes in their relations with science and the state. | Mike Poltorak
James Fairhead
Melissa Leach | IDS Working Papers 224, 2004 | Last Updated - 11 January 2005 |
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