Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT Blériot XI.This is the first report at the international level on engineering,and the first with a specific focus on engineering in thecontext of human, social, economic and cultural developmentin developed/industrial countries and particularly in lowerincome,developing countries.Engineering has given us the world we live in. It is an incrediblydiverse activity covering many different areas and levels.Engineering is regarded differently in different places and atdifferent times. This diversity, and the constraints of size andthe resources available to produce this first Report, requiresthat such a potentially comprehensive study must have a certainfocus.The Report is therefore intended as a platform for the betterunderstanding of engineering around the world, and wasconceived to meet this urgent and overdue need. The Reportis a health-check rather than a ‘state of the profession’ reviewwith reflections from more than one hundred distinguishedengineers and engineering organizations from around theworld. It highlights the links between engineering, economicgrowth and human development, and aims to bring engineeringout of the shadows for policy-makers and the public.It positions engineering as a central actor in the global issuesand challenges – such as poverty reduction, climate changeand the need for sustainable development – that we facearound the world. Technology is often emphasized by worldleaders as providing the solutions to global problems; engineersneed to get involved in the conversation and help toput words into practice. Governments for example, might beencouraged to have chief engineering advisors.Another idea behind the Report was to present engineeringas a human and social as well as a scientific, technologicaland innovative activity, in social, economic and cultural contexts;engineering is one of the few activities that connectswith almost all others. It is intended to be a human ratherthan a technical report on engineering. It aims to discusshuman as well as engineering issues and to try to understandand address some perceptions about engineeringsuch as engineering is a boring and difficult subject whichis poorly paid and environmentally negative. These are vitalissues and engineering is vital in sustainable development,© Wikimedia commons/ Deutsches Bundesarchivaddressing climate change mitigation and adaptation, andthe reduction of poverty. As a problem-solving profession,engineering needs to focus on these issues in a rigorous,problem-solving approach. In an attempt to understand howit might do this better in the future, this Report also considersengineering education suggesting that it might benefitfrom less formulaic and more problem-based, project-basedand just-in-time approaches in order that the next generationof engineer can rise to the challenges and opportunitiesthat they are inheriting.To examine these issues and challenges, a wide variety of peoplewere invited to contribute to this Report, including engineers,economists, scientists, politicians, policy-makers andplanners, from the public and private sectors, and from theprofession and universities. Amid busy lives, almost all invitedcontributors responded to our requests for shorter contributions,which they wrote on a voluntary basis. This Report is atribute to their commitment to engineering and a testamentto their shared, heartfelt need for such a document.Given the issues and challenges facing the Report itself, whilemany issues and challenges facing engineering have been identifiedand discussed, others have only become more apparent.As the Director-General observes, this Report raises almost asmany questions as it answers.There is, in particular, a need for improved statistics and indicatorson engineering. It was hoped, for example, to comparethe number of engineers per capita around the world, as canbe done for doctors and teachers. Rather surprisingly, this wasnot possible due to fact that such data collected at the internationallevel aggregates ‘scientists and engineers’ together(although such data does exist at the national level in somecountries). UNESCO data shows that developed, industrializedcountries have between twenty and fifty scientists and engineersper 10,000 population, compared to around five scientistsand engineers on average for developing countries, downto one or less for some poorer African countries. Given theimportance of engineering, science and technology in development,this lack of information is a serious constraint to thedevelopment and future of developing countries.This Report therefore highlights that there is a clear need forthe introduction of disaggregated data for engineering as aninput to policy making and planning, together with differenttypes and levels of engineer (for which clearer definitionswould also be useful). There is also a need for better data onthe important contribution of engineering to innovation, andthe importance of engineering, innovation and entrepreneurshipto development. This would be of particular relevancefor developing countries given the estimate that around 90per cent of the world’s engineers work for 10 per cent of theworld’s population (the richest 10 per cent).16