Muslim states split over call for more spending on research
29 June 1999
Science and education ministers of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) yesterday endorsed a draft strategy for developing science and technology in the Muslim world. The strategy's main - and most controversial - recommendation that governments should allocate a minimum of one per cent of their gross domestic product for scientific and technological development.
Despite agreeing to do this, many of the ministers admitted that a goal of one per cent was unrealistic. Delegate after delegate said that such a target would be too difficult for most OIC member countries to achieve.
The strategy document is the work of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Isesco) and the OIC's Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (Comstech).
Atta ur Rahman, Comstech's coordinator general, said that all developing countries had no option but to increase their investment on science if they want to lift themselves above the pile of underdeveloped nations. A particularly pressing priority, he said, is human resource development. A second priority is regional cooperation - both of which needed funding.
"Forgive me for being blunt," Rahman, a natural product chemist, told the ministers. "I am a working scientist, not a diplomat and am not blessed with the appropriate words with which to decorate this message: too often, meetings like this result in very nice looking resolutions. But enough has been said, it is time to act," he said. Rahman will receive this year's Unesco science prize at a presentation ceremony today (29 June).
Abd al Rahman al Awadi of the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences in Kuwait, called on the ministers to emphasize the "moral and ethical dimension" to science in their responses to the draft documents of the World Conference on Science.
Referring to developments such as cloning, Awadi, a former minister for health in Kuwait said: "We can't go down the same road as developed countries." He cautioned: "Beware. Don't become the sorcerer's apprentice."
EHSAN MASOOD
Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1999 Registered No. 785998 England.