Scientists meet to face problem of poverty

Press, 21 August 1979, Page 9

Scientists meet to face problem of poverty

. NZPA-Reuter Vienna Some 4000 delegates from jlso countries will begin today one of. the biggest [conferences in history aimed at harnessing the wonders of science to end world poverty.

[ The United Nations Conference on Science and Tech- ■ nology for Development will Ibe the last and largest of eight big world assemblies organised by the United Nations this decade. Poor countries want a United Nations fund to pour money into research in developing nations, and they hope for $2OOO a year by 1985, and twice that sum later on. The West would contribute half the money, and the socialist countries and main oil exporters 25 per cent each. But Western delegates indicate that sums on this scale are unlikely to be made available. '

“If U.N.C.S.T.D. does not beat governments into action, it will have failed,” says Dr W. Chagula, of Tanzania, one of the participants.

Privately, representatives from the “Group of 77” developing countries concede that they are unlikely to get

a promise of funds on the scale they seek. However, the conference, itself costing SSOM, may chart some remedies for the smouldering problems of poverty in the Third World and the widening gap-be-tween rich and poor countries.

A mere six countries — the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Japan, West Germany, and Britain — ; account for 85 per cent of ‘ all the money spent in the world on research and development. The hopes are that at ! least advanced countries can be persuaded to make the results, of their research more easily available, while developing countries can better assess their needs in such fields as energy, drugs, petro-chemicals, aviation and telecommunications. Alongside U.N.C.S.T.D., a forum of non-govemment pressure groups has opened in Vienna with more than 1000 scientists and other participants. The forum will lobby, U.N.C.S.T.D. delegations, present study papers, and publish a daily newspaper in what the co-ordinator, Mr Arne Haselbach, called “a huge undertaking in mutual education.”