Alleviation of poverty 'should be top research priority'
27 June 1999
[BUDAPEST] M.S. Swaminathan, one of the architects of the Green Revolution, has called for the eradication of poverty to be given the highest priority by national governments and international organizations in setting their agendas for the support of research.
In a keynote address on the opening day of the World Conference on Science, Swaminathan said poverty eradication is the key to meeting basic human needs. "Poverty is the root cause of hunger, lack of shelter and access to clean water, illiteracy, ill health and other forms of human deprivation," he said.
He showed how many applications of modern science, its management and its administration have contributed to poverty. But he said that there is little doubt that science has a crucial role to play in poverty eradication - both in the way it is applied and in the way it is used to empower the poor to help themselves.
An example of the first, he said, is the genetic modification of agriculture. An example of the second is the way the science enables farmers to manage their land and livestock better by training them to gather and make use of computer-based data on soil, pests and water - helping them to be able to understand the causes of specific problems as well as thinking of ways of resolving them.
In a wide-ranging address, Swaminathan pointed out that no international summit or convention in recent times has addressed the issue of poverty exclusively, and he added that the goals of many such gatherings will not be reached without simultaneously addressing poverty issues.
Three such issues, according to Swaminathan are: the setting up of an international centre for cooperation in water management; a global programme to fight maternal and foetal undernutrition to reduce the frequency of children being born with low birthweights; and a similar scheme to eliminate hidden hunger caused by the absence of micronutrients in the diet.
Contaminated drinking water contributes to 10 per cent of diseases in developing countries. And in 1996, 1.8 billion low and middle income households lacked access to sanitary facilities. But with global per capita water supplies 30 per cent lower than 25 years ago, and continuing to decline, Swaminathan predicted that water conflicts would grow unless proactive measures were taken to resolve potential disputes over water.
Similar measures are needed to tackle the lack of nutrition in many countries, according to Swaminathan. Up to half of the children born in several developing countries are characterized by low birth weight caused by their mothers being undernourished, he said. "Millions of children will continue to be born for mere existence and not for happiness if this area of nutrition continues to receive inadequate attention."
But poverty, according to Swaminathan, had a another cause: lack of access to knowledge, or what he described as "orphans remaining orphans". One example he said was the "technological apartheid" being created by the increasing amount of science being covered by intellectual property rights.
Not only is this closing off sources of knowledge to the poor, but it is also inequitable. For example, the lack of recognition by the World Trade Organization of the "invaluable contributions of tribal and rural families to genetic resources conservation" remains a source of concern. He called on the WTO's member states to correct this by bringing the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in line with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
The world's science academies, said Swaminathan, have a duty to help the rural poor to increase the economic value of their time and labour. "A priority task for the Inter-Academy Center proposed by Professor Bruce Alberts [president of the National Academy of Sciences] should be the closing of the vast knowledge and skill gap between rich and poor nations and between the rich and poor within nations."
Any anti-poverty policy, said Swaminathan, had to emphasize access to science for the women of the developing world, who have suffered far more than men.
Some of the blame, he suggested, lay at the door of science education, which, he said tended to be biased towards men. Science textbooks, for example, do not relate to women's and girls daily experience and fail to give recognition to women scientists. "It is essential that women not only benefit from technology, but also participate in the process from design to application."
EHSAN MASOOD
Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1999 Registered No. 785998 England.