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

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT■■■engaging effectively in the global economy through directforeign investment, international trade, mobility of engineersand the flow of work to countries with cost-effectivetalent;ensuring that international aid funds are utilized effectivelyand efficiently for initial project implementation, for longtermoperation and maintenance and for the developmentof capacity for future work; andstimulation of job creation, through entrepreneurship andenterprise, including the creation of career paths to attractand inspire future engineers.Capacity-building should be driven by the needs of the beneficiary;there are a number of approaches that yield effectiveresults. These include helping the key institutions: the privatesector, universities and professional societies, to evolve. Forexternally funded infrastructure projects, having a capacitybuildingcomponent explicitly included to train operators,maintenance staff and the engineers involved in the designand construction phases, is highly desirable. The intent shouldbe to leave the local engineering community capable of executingsimilar projects entirely on their own, without the needfor external assistance; the goal is to create the local capability,including consulting engineering practices and design-buildcompanies, which attract capable people to grow and developthe human, institutional and infrastructure capacity withinthe country.Reflections on previous effortsIn a detailed study of the results of foreign aid to developing countriesover the past several decades, William Easterly concludes, inhis book, The Elusive Quest for Growth (MIT Press, 2002):Previous efforts have tried to use foreign aid, investment inmachines, fostering education at the primary and secondarylevels, controlling population growth, and giving loansand debt relief conditional on reforms to stimulate the economicgrowth that would allow these countries to movetoward self sufficiency……all of these efforts over the past few decades have failed tolead to the desired economic growth……these massive and expensive efforts have failed becausethey did not hit the fundamental human behavioural chordthat ‘people respond to incentives’.Having concluded that past efforts at stimulating economicgrowth in developing countries have failed, Easterly outlineswhat he thinks would work. He argues that there are two areasthat can likely lead to the desired economic growth in developingcountries, and can lead them toward economic self suffic i e n c y :1.the utilization of advanced technologies, and2. education that leads to high skills in technological areas.While emphasis on health and basic relief needs must continue,there is also a critical need to break the cycles of povertythrough development of strong and competitive economiesthat can relate to world markets. The building of indigenouspools of people with quality educations in science, technologyand engineering can help lead to economic growth andhealthy economies.What is neededA large pool of high-quality, accredited engineering graduatesis needed in developing countries. There is a vital need forthe creation of engineering jobs. This, however, is a chickenand-eggsituation – which comes first? Increased demand forengineers will result only when there is a sufficient pool ofwell-qualified graduates to attract direct foreign investment,multinational corporation operations, offshore outsourcingfrom developed countries and entrepreneurial start-ups; butthe jobs must be there in order to attract people into studyingengineering. Government officials must therefore pursueeffective economic development and job generation strategiesin parallel with making the needed investments to enhancethe quality and quantity of engineering graduates – one cannotgo without the other.At the 2004 meeting of the American Society of CivilEngineers, the South Korean delegation to the CapacityBuilding Forum presented the results of South Korea’sinvestment over the past three decades in the numberand quality of engineering graduates. In 1970, South Koreahad about 6,000 engineering graduates. In 1980, thesewere increased to 14,000. By 1990, the figure had jumpedto about 80,000. When plotted against South Korea’s percapita GNP growth, the number of engineering graduatesalmost directly parallels the growth of the South Koreaneconomy, offset by a few years. This data appears to showa direct cause and effect: investment in building a wellqualifiedand sufficiently large pool of engineers leads toeconomic development.In the case of India there has been a long-term effort toincrease the numbers of engineering graduates and thequality of their education. Whereas in the past, many ofthese graduates sought employment outside the country,now many are returning and newer graduates are stayingto work in India in the software and design industries,often to high-tech cities where well-paying careers andextensive numbers of colleagues await them. The growingnumber of technically proficient and well-educated specialistsalso has enabled India to become a prime locationfor the outsourcing technical support by the world’s leadingtechnology firms.In China, already a major economic power, the proportionof first science and engineering degrees to all bachelor’sequivalentdegrees was 59 per cent, as compared to about33 per cent in the US in 2001 (Source: Science and EngineeringIndicators 2004, National Science Foundation, NationalScience Board).314