My own research and global experience working directly with impoverished communities demonstrates that, from the perspective of sustainability, there's little lasting value to transferring any technology to another nation or culture without the following preconditions: 1. Those intended to use the technology must have the capacity to maintain it over time, adapt it to changing local conditions, and, ultimately, manufacture future generations of the technology. This implies that significant investments in capacity-building must be made prior to technology transfer. 2. Those offering the technology as a solution must justify its appropriateness in the local context into which it would become embedded — i.e., the ecological, environmental, socio-cultural, and economic setting. The burden of proof is on the proponents of the technology and sizable resources must be invested in researching how the technology might function in the local context; and 3. Authentic, locally-controlled institutions must be engaged in the process of adopting, maintaining and adapting the technology. There must be evidence of local investment in the technology and a meaningful process of community consultation in which the technology is selected voluntarily from amongst multiple options. If these preconditions are not met, our good intentions are likely to transform into technological imperialism, benefiting few.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-8947.2009.01257.xPuntuación Altmetric:
Dimensiones Recuento de citas:
Año de publicación
2009
Autores
Idioma
English
Palabras clave
climate change, environmental information technology, environmental management, natural resources
