The Science, Technology and Innovation Global Expert Teamat The World Bank
Invites You to a Lecture
By
Professor Sir Gordon Conway
Science and Innovation for Development:
What Role for the World Bank and other Development Partners?
May 17, 2010
3:30 pm
Preston Auditorium
The World Bank
(A reception will follow)
Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) are indispensable tools for addressing high priority development challenges. There will be no sustainable solutions to any of the critical development challenges facing the World Bank and its clients – inclusive globalization, food security, clean energy, effective health care delivery systems, etc. -- if developing countries do not have the capacity to find and invent appropriate technologies, adapt them to local circumstances, and use them to solve pressing social and economic development challenges.
Science and innovation is now increasingly conducted through a globally networked system, where scientists collaborate across countries to access the best expertise, resources and partnerships. It is essential that developing countries enter this system and to do this in a way that helps them build the capacity they need to solve their problems.
None of this can be accomplished by simply transferring OECD scientific research results into developing countries. Developing countries ‘need the capacity to build the capacity to develop national innovation systems’ that can adapt and innovate. For this reason, the World Bank and other development partners urgently need to prioritize STI in the developing countries so that the benefits of the global scientific network can be applied to the global challenges of reducing poverty and hunger and to threats posed by climate change.
At this seminar, Professor Sir Gordon Conway will use his recently published book Science and Innovation for Development as the basis for discussion and debate on these issues, and the role the Bank can play in them. To download 'Science and Innovation for Development' by Gordon Conway & Jeff Waage with Sara Delaney go to:
www.ukcds.org.uk/publication-Science_and_Innovation_for_Development-172.html
For all non-World Bank participants, please complete the attached registration form by cob, Thursday, May 13 and return the form via em to Ms. Tuya Dorjgotov at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please contact Tuya with any questions at 202-458-1772.
For access to the event, please bring a photo ID and enter the main World Bank complex at the entrance facing Pennsylvania Avenue at 18th Street.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway
Professor of International Development
Centre for Environmental Policy
Imperial College, London
Gordon Conway trained in agricultural ecology, attending the universities of Bangor, Cambridge, West Indies (Trinidad) and California (Davis). In the 1960’s he was a pioneer of sustainable agriculture developing integrated pest management programs for the State of Sabah in Malaysia. He joined Imperial College in 1970 setting up the Centre for Environmental Technology in 1976. In the 1970s and 1980s he lived and worked extensively in Asia and the Middle East, for the Ford Foundation, World Bank and USAID. He directed the Sustainable Agriculture Programme at IIED and then became representative of the Ford Foundation in New Delhi. Subsequently he became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex and Chair of IDS. From 1998-2004 he was President of the Rockefeller Foundation and from 2004- June 2009 Chief Scientific Adviser to DFID and President of the Royal Geographical Society. He is a KCMG, Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex, Hon Fell RAEng and FRS. He holds five honorary degrees and fellowships. He is the author of ‘The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for all in the 21st Century' Penguin and Cornell.
