Friends of Europe discuss taking innovation to developing countries

27 Jan '06

4 min read

Friends of Europe held a public meeting on 24 January where participants discussed 'Technology, globalisation and inclusion: is Innovation a development tool?'

The talk rounded on three main themes - barriers to trade, government intervention and education, with each speaker taking a different road through the three subjects. The invited speakers were senior vice-president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, Publisher of The Economist, Andrew Rashbass and Secretary General of the European trade Union Federation, John Monks.

Mr Rashbass began the discussion, setting out his belief that trade has many of the answers to development, and that trade will boost the economies of both rich and poor countries. 'In poor, sub-Saharan Africa, technology is not the problem - issues of health, security, food and trade liberalisation stand in the way of greater development. Here in the western world, there needs to be deregulation and low taxation - you can't legislate for innovation. For rich and poor countries, the most important factor is trade deregulation and how you get government out of the way, not in the way,' he said.

Brad Smith looked towards education as a means of pulling developing countries into the developed world. 'Everywhere you go in the world, people are asking the same question, 'How do we compete?'

And the answer is to be cheaper or better. In North America and Japan, many companies compete simply by being better, but many emerging economies manage to be both cheaper and better. Every country can invest in its education - which provides services to the world. We need to convert IQ to IP [intellectual property] in the future, and we need the government there to plug the gaps in the market.'

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