The world’s poorest countries are being sapped of the technological capacity they need to break out of the poverty trap and catch up with the rest of the world, the UN’s trade and development agency said Thursday.The UN Conference on Trade and Development argued in its annual report on Least Developed Countries that science, technology and innovation were not luxuries for the world’s poorest, but necessities that would allow them to leapfrog into the 21st century.”We do not see the real mainstreaming of technological policies in the poverty reduction strategies,” UNCTAD Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi told journalists.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/07/20/1184559980916.htmlThe report news release and the actual report are available from the UNCTAD website here – see http://www.unctad.org/Templates/webflyer.asp?docid=8578&intItemID=1634&lang=1