Transfer of Technology for Development in Times of Accelerating Change: New perspectives for the multilateral framework

Technological learning and innovation are essential for structural transformation and productive capacity development and therefore for long-term improvements in income and living standards. They are also critical to enable developing countries make progress towards the sustainable development goals and address multiple challenges ranging from health crisis, to food security or climate change.

While technological development increasingly takes place within globalized knowledge networks, those networks largely leave out developing countries, making technological learning strongly dependent on countries’ ability to access, adopt and adapt technologies that have been developed elsewhere.

The implications for trade and development of the technology gap between developed and developing countries and the question of how to enable international transfer of technology have always been at the core of the work of UNCTAD. Fast technological development opens opportunities to address both long-standing and new challenges confronting developing countries. At the same time, the rapid pace of change also presents a threat of widening international technological gaps and making technology transfer and adoption a more complex and costly process. This makes the development of flexible, pragmatic approaches to technology transfer more urgent than ever.

At this event, which is co-organized by the UNCTAD secretariat and the Permanent Mission of Peru to the international organizations in Geneva, experts from the secretariat will critically examine core concepts commonly used in the international debate around transfer of technology, based on the analysis of current trends in technological development and their consequences for sustainable and inclusive development. The presentations will also draw on the evidence gathered through UNCTAD’s technical cooperation programmes in the field of technology and innovation policy.

PROGRAMME

10:30   Welcome Remarks

• Ms. Shamika Sirimanne, Director, Division on Technology and Logistics, UNCTAD
• H.E. Ambassador Luis Juan Chuquihuara Chil, Permanent Representative of Peru to the international organizations in Geneva

10:45  Towards a coherent multilateral framework for technology transfer through trade

• Miho Shirotori, Division on International Trade and Commodities, UNCTAD

11:00   Implications of fast technological change for international transfer of technology: new challenges and emerging approaches

• Clovis Freire, Division on Technology and Logistics, UNCTAD

11:15   Technology transfer as a process of economic and technological discovery and experimentation

• Dimo Calovski, Division on Technology and Logistics, UNCTAD

11:30   Presentation by national experts from Peru 

• Introduction by Ms. Mariela DEL CARPIO NEYRA, Director, Policy and Programmes, National Council for Science and Technology, Peru
• Presentation by Ms. Astrid Hassel CRIALES JOHNSON, Innovation Projects Specialist, National Council for Science and Technology, Peru

11:45   Interaction with participants

12:00   Concluding remarks by Ms. Sirimanne and Ambassador Chuquihuara