Big deal: UN Technology Bank

The United Nations is inching closer to its Technology Bank, an international technology transfer organisation enabling tech transfer between the least developed countries. The UN will announce a panel of experts who will work out a full proposal through a feasibility study to that effect.

The panel, made up of some dozen experts including scientists, business leaders and government representatives, will detail governance arrangements, funding opportunities and defining working methods. Turkey is hoping to host the Technology Bank, and has committed funds towards the feasibility study.

The bank has the support of both industrialised nations such as the US, Japan and European countries, and also the support of the least developed countries. The UN currently recognises 48 nations as such, including Gambia, Chad and Yemen.

The Technology Bank will need to address a whole range of user cases. Samoa, for example, only counts one university with about 2,000 students, the National University of Samoa, and its economy heavily relies on tourism (a total of 55% of its exports). On the other end of the spectrum is Rwanda, whose High Commissioner Williams Nkurunziza confirmed to attendees at this year’s GCV Symposium in May that the country’s economy has grown by 600% since the genocide. But while the Rwandan government has worked hard to build an ecosystem, outside investment to drive growth is still lacking and it is here that the Technology Bank would need to step up.

The UN is hoping to have the Technology Bank up and running by 2015, when the timeline on its Millennium Development Goals ends. These goals, established at the Millennium Summit in 2000 and ratified by all 189 member states at the time (there are now 193) set out eight goals to achieve by 2015.

The goals, some of which the world has been more successful at reaching than others, range from eradicating poverty and hunger and achieving universal primary education to promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. They also aimed at combating fatal diseases such as HIV, Aids and malaria. Another goal was to ensure environmental sustainability. Finally, the eighth goal was the first stepping stone towards the Technology Bank, as it called for a global partnership for development.

One of the targets that will be missed is the aim to have universal primary education, the rippling effects of which the Technology Bank will inevitably need to address. More worryingly perhaps though is the fact that the UN is yet to agree on what exactly its Sustainable Development Goals are, the targets meant to replace the Millennium Goals come 2015, and the larger policy framework within which the Technology Bank will have to operate.

During the Rio+20 conference in 2012, the UN could only agree on setting up an open working group to establish goals. These goals will be announced at the International Symposium on the Post-2015 Agenda, to be held in Sydney on November 12th and 13th, 2014 – set to coincide with the G20 summit. The symposium’s official website currently only shows a placeholder by the domain registrar.

A so-called zero-draft was released by the working group in June 2014, with proposals including the end of “poverty in all its forms everywhere”. The draft also looks at tackling other problems targeted and missed by the Millennium Development Goals, such as gender equality and environmental sustainability. The zero-draft has 2017 as the start date for the Technology Bank’s operations.

The Technology Bank, for its part, will have three distinct goals. Firstly, it will operate a patent bank, enabling the least developed countries to negotiate access to IP. Secondly, it will work towards creating the necessary ecosystems and establish incubators. Finally, it will offer researchers in the target countries access to scientific literature and build networks.

Before the Technology Bank can start operations, final plans as set out by the panel will need to gain full approval by the general assembly.

Teresa Liu, chief of development solutions and technology exchange at the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, said: “The tasks awaiting us are huge, but the initiative will expand its value by leveraging other existing efforts, such as those of other UN agencies.”