From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

2 POWER AND POLITICS I SURF, THEREFORE I AMTHE PROMISE OF TECHNOLOGYWhen oral rehydration therapy (ORT) was developed at Bangladesh’sInternational Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in the late1960s, the Lancet, a leading medical journal, hailed it as possibly themost important medical discovery of the twentieth century. Untilthen the only effective remedy for dehydration caused by diarrhoeawas providing sterilised liquid through an intravenous drip, whichcost about $50 per child, far beyond the budgets and facilities of mostdeveloping-country health centres. In comparison, ORT sachets sell atless than 10 cents apiece. Scientists found that ORT led to a 25-foldincrease in a child’s ability to absorb the solution, compared withwater alone, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. 63Technology is knowledge embodied in machines or processes, andholds out the allure of a fast and apparently painless track to development.The capacity of countries to create knowledge and turn it intotechnology increasingly determines their economic prospects. However,despite the gee-whizz enthusiasm of optimists, technology is doggedby issues of power and politics that severely hamper its ability to helppoor people build their capabilities. Nor is technology always benign.After working on the Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weaponsduring the Second World War, Albert Einstein observed, ‘Technologicalprogress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.’Technological progress often exacerbates inequality. At leastinitially, those with power and a voice are often better placed toacquire and adapt new technologies, which helps skew global researchand development (R&D) priorities towards the needs of the wealthy,both in terms of issues and funding. Only 1 per cent of the new medicinesbrought to market between 1975 and 1996 were for the treatmentof tropical diseases. Ten years later, and despite somephilanthropic efforts, that disparity remains: only 10 per cent of theoverall world health research budget of $50bn–$60bn is spent on thediseases that affect 90 per cent of the world’s population. 64The failure to develop an effective microbicide against HIV is oneexample of the distortion in global research priorities. In part becausepharmaceutical companies cater to rich-country markets, where formany years the pandemic affected primarily male homosexuals, their55