UN science taskforce - Lack of science advice damaging development efforts

Calestous Juma, a co-ordinator of the UN Millennium Project Taskforce on Science, Technology and Innovation, said today that investing in technology such as tsunami warning systems could avoid the need to spend millions on humanitarian aid.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the taskforce’s January 17 report to the UN, Professor Juma said: “A nation’s ability to solve problems and initiate and sustain economic growth depends partly on its capabilities in science, technology and innovation … The terrible devastation caused by the tsunamis last week raises the question of whether enough was invested in adopting existing technologies which could have reduced the scale of the disaster. For example, the sum required to establish an early warning system now looks pitifully small compared to the cost of the disaster in terms of the tens of thousands of lives lost and the billions of dollars in damage caused.”