主题：【希望是废话】UN报告指：贫穷国家必须在科技上赶上 -- 西风陶陶

Poor Nations Must Catch Up on Science, UN Told

Thu February 5, 2004 03:19 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Poor nations must develop their own science and technology capabilities or risk falling farther and farther behind the industrialized world, a group of 90 national science academies reported on Thursday.

The inability of most poor countries to keep up with rapid technological change shows that current models of technology transfer and international aid are not working well, the InterAcademy Council said in a report to the United Nations.

"Enhancing science and technology capacity in developing countries is truly a necessity and not a luxury," the report concluded, citing a growing gap between the world's "have" and "have not" countries.

The council was formed in 2000 by the leaders of 90 of the world's national science academies, to advise international bodies such as the United Nations on scientific matters.

The council is a private organization and is headquartered at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The report was prepared by a council study group.

The report said wealthy and poor countries showed stark differences in the number of scientists they were turning out and their commitment to research and development.

While rich industrialized nations spend between 1.5 percent and 3.8 percent of their gross domestic product on research and development, most developing nations devote less than 0.5 percent of GDP to research and development, it said.

While the number of scientists and engineers averages 3,281 per million people in wealthy countries, middle-income nations average just 788 per million and the figure is too small to be reliably calculated in poor countries, it found.

The study group called on all developing nations to commit at least 1 percent to 1.5 percent of their GDP to building science and technology capacity.