Science, Technology and Innovation for Development

E/RES/2017/22No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the Economic and Social Council, under agenda item 18bScience and technology for development, published in 2017.

What other versions does this mandate have?

13 versions · 2013–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is E/RES/2025/19

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Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Capacity Building Information Technology Innovations Science and Technology Science and Technology Policy Technical Cooperation Technology Transfer

What does this mandate say?

45 operative paragraphs

Recommends the following for consideration by national Governments, the Commission on Science and Technology for Development and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development:

Governments, individually and collectively, are encouraged to take into account the findings of the Commission and to consider taking the following actions:

To closely link science, technology, innovation and strategies of sustainable development by prominently featuring capacity-building in information and communications technologies and science, technology and innovation in national development planning;

To promote local innovation capabilities for inclusive and sustainable economic development by bringing together local scientific, vocational and engineering knowledge, mobilizing resources from multiple channels, improving core information and communications technology and supporting smart infrastructure, including through collaboration with and among national programmes;

iii

To encourage and support the science, technology and innovation efforts leading to the development of infrastructure and policies that support the global expansion of information and communications technology infrastructure, products and services, including broadband Internet access to all people, particularly women, girls and youth, catalysing multi-stakeholder efforts to bring 1.5 billion new Internet users online by 2020 and endeavouring to improve the affordability of such products and services;

To undertake systemic research, including gender-sensitive aspects, for foresight exercises, on new trends in science, technology and innovation and information and communications technologies and their impact on development, particularly in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

To work, with input from a variety of stakeholders, including appropriate United Nations agencies, to formulate, adopt and implement science, technology and innovation policies aimed at contributing to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals;

To use strategic foresight exercises to identify potential gaps in education for the medium and long term and address such gaps with a policy mix, including the promotion of gender-responsive science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and vocational training;

vii

To use strategic foresight as a process to encourage structured debate among all stakeholders, including representatives of Government, science, industry and civil society and the private sector, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, towards creating a shared understanding of long-term issues and building consensus on future policies;

viii

To undertake strategic foresight initiatives on global and regional challenges at regular intervals and cooperate towards the establishment of a mapping system to review and share technology foresight outcomes, including pilot projects, with other Member States, making use of existing regional mechanisms, and in collaboration with relevant stakeholders;

To encourage the review of progress on integrating science, technology and innovation in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals;

To conduct assessments, including of gender-sensitive aspects, of national innovation systems, including digital ecosystems, drawing from foresight exercises, at regular intervals, to identify weaknesses in the systems and make effective policy interventions to strengthen their weaker components, and share outcomes with other Member States;

To recognize the need to promote the functional dynamics of innovation systems and other relevant methodologies based on diversified policy instruments to support science, technology and innovation development priorities, in order to strengthen the coherence of such systems for sustainable development;

xii

To encourage digital natives to play a key role in a community-based approach, including gender-responsive approaches, to science, technology and innovation capacity-building, and facilitate the use of information and communications technologies in the context of the 2030 Agenda;

xiii

To put in place policies that support the development of digital ecosystems, bearing in mind the potential of emerging digital technologies to leapfrog existing technologies for development, that are inclusive and take into account the socioeconomic and political context of countries and attract and support private investment and innovation, particularly encouraging the development of local content and entrepreneurship;

xiv

To collaborate with all relevant stakeholders, promote the application of information and communications technologies in all sectors, improve environmental sustainability and encourage the creation of suitable facilities to recycle and dispose of e-waste;

To address the ongoing and persistent gender gap in the fields of science, technology and innovation as a whole, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in particular, by encouraging mentoring and supporting other efforts to attract and retain women and girls in those fields, as well as applying a gender lens when developing and implementing policies that harness science, technology and innovation;

xvi

To support the policies and activities of developing countries in the fields of science and technology through North-South as well as South-South cooperation, as complementary to but not substituting for each other, by encouraging financial and technical assistance, capacity-building, technology transfer on mutually agreed terms and conditions and technical training programmes or courses;

xvii

To encourage countries to progressively increase the rate of generation of high-quality skilled human resources at all levels by providing an environment for building a critical mass of human resource capacity, harnessing and effectively participating in the application of science, technology and innovation for value addition activities, solving problems and enhancing human welfare;

xviii

To increase national support for research and development in agriculture and support investments in infrastructure, extension services and marketing, organizational and social innovations to improve food security;

xix

To support policies that increase financial inclusion and deepen the sources of financing and direct investments towards innovations that address the Sustainable Development Goals;

To ensure the inclusiveness of innovation, especially with regard to local communities, women and youth, to ensure that the scaling and diffusion of new technologies are inclusive and do not create further divides;

The Commission is encouraged:

To continue its role as a torch-bearer for science, technology and innovation and to provide high-level advice to the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly on relevant science, technology, engineering and innovation issues;

To help to articulate the important role of information and communications technologies and science, technology and innovation as enablers in the 2030 Agenda by acting as a forum for strategic planning and providing foresight about critical trends in science, technology and innovation in key sectors of the economy and drawing attention to emerging and disruptive technologies;

iii

To consider how its work aligns with, feeds into and complements other international forums on science, technology and innovation and efforts supporting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda;

To raise awareness and facilitate networking and partnerships among various technology foresight organizations and networks, in collaboration with other stakeholders;

To promote, in the spirit of the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, international cooperation in the field of science and technology for development, including capacity-building and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms and conditions;

To raise awareness among policymakers about the process of innovation and to identify particular opportunities for developing countries to benefit from such innovation, with special attention being placed on new trends in innovation that can offer novel possibilities for developing countries;

vii

To highlight scientific, technical and innovative applications for food security, including access to better data sources that feed into agricultural extension services, early warning systems for disasters and local innovation efforts; and to promote the sharing of best practices and lessons learned and regional and international cooperation;

viii

To proactively strengthen and revitalize global science, technology and innovation partnerships for sustainable development, which would entail the engagement of the Commission in (a) translating technology foresight into elaborating the scope of specific international projects for targeted research, technology development and deployment and initiatives for building human resource capacity for science, technology and innovation; and (b) exploring innovative financing models and other resources contributing to enhancing the capacities of developing countries in collaborative projects and initiatives in science, technology and innovation;

To explore ways and means of conducting international technology assessment and foresight exercises on existing, new and emerging technologies and their implications for food security, including discussions about models of governance for new areas of scientific and technological development;

To discuss and explore innovative financing models, such as impact investment, as a means to attract new stakeholders, innovators and sources of investment capital for science, technology, engineering and innovation-based solutions, in collaboration with other organizations, where appropriate;

To promote capacity-building and cooperation in research and development, in collaboration with relevant institutions, including appropriate United Nations agencies, working to facilitate the strengthening of innovation systems that support innovators, particularly in developing countries, to boost their efforts to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development;

xii

To provide a forum for sharing not only success stories and best practices but also failures and key challenges and learning from the results of foresight exercises, successful local innovation models, case studies and experience on the use of science, technology and engineering for innovation, including the application of new emerging technologies, in symbiotic relationship with information and communications technologies, for inclusive and sustainable development, and to share findings with all relevant United Nations entities, including through the Technology Facilitation Mechanism and its multi-stakeholder forum on science, technology and innovation;

xiii

To contribute to alleviating the constraints faced by developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States, through the creation of a Sustainable Development Goals resource access hub, through extrabudgetary resources, a vehicle which would be the repository of projects, data, financing mechanisms, technological advances and experts, as well as success stories, difficulties and obstacles encountered by countries;

xiv

To continue to play an active role in creating awareness of the potential contribution of science, technology and innovation to the 2030 Agenda through substantive inputs, as appropriate, to relevant processes and bodies of the United Nations, and to share findings and good practices on science, technology and innovation among Member States and beyond;

To highlight the importance of the work of the Commission related to the implementation of and follow-up to the areas of information and communications technologies and science, technology and innovation related to the Sustainable Development Goals, with the Chair of the Commission to report at appropriate reviews and meetings of the Council, the high-level political forum on sustainable development and other relevant forums;

xvi

To strengthen and deepen collaboration between the Commission on Science and Technology for Development and the Commission on the Status of Women, including sharing good practices and lessons learned in integrating a gender perspective in science, technology and innovation policymaking and implementation;

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is encouraged:

To seek funding proactively for the expansion of science, technology and innovation policy reviews, with an emphasis on the critical role of information and communications technologies in empowering science, technology and innovation and engineering capacity-building and utilization, and the implementation of the recommendations on those reviews, as appropriate, in close cooperation with United Nations agencies and international organizations;

To look into the feasibility of including elements of strategic foresight and digital ecosystem assessment in policy reviews of science, technology and innovation and information and communications technologies, possibly by including a chapter dedicated to these themes;

iii

To broaden the framework for national science, technology and innovation policy reviews in order to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals, including a specific focus on bottom-of-the-pyramid approaches to innovation, and social inclusion;

To plan for periodic updates on progress made in countries for which science, technology and innovation policy reviews have been performed and to invite those countries to report to the Commission on Science and Technology for Development on progress made, lessons learned and challenges encountered in implementing recommendations;

To encourage the Gender Advisory Board of the Commission to provide inputs to the policy deliberations and documentation of the Commission, to report on progress at the annual sessions of the Commission and to better integrate gender perspectives into science, technology and innovation policy reviews.

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