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Current General Studies Magazine: "Workshop on Science, Diplomacy and Policy" March + April 2015

Current General Studies Magazine (March + April 2015)

General Studies - III: Science & Tech. Based Article (Workshop on Science, Diplomacy and Policy)

The link between science and diplomacy

As in all aspects of human life, and in inter and intra-State relations, science and technology are impacting profoundly on diplomacy. They have done this in two ways: first, through the impact of scientific advances on the conduct of diplomacy; and second, through the newer tools science has made available to diplomacy to nurture more constructive relationships between and among nations.

In a recent study, Skyful of Lies and Black Swans, the Chief Presenter of BBC, Nick Gowing, describes how "institutions of power” - both governments and corporates - are today typically ill-equipped to handle the onslaught of the new media, with its contracted timelines of immediate public impact and the shortening of news and information cycles. The public are now aware of what is happening on the ground before or simultaneously with official agencies, leaving governments little reaction time. This, in turn, is denting public confidence, and eroding the capacity of statecraft and diplomacy to effectively deal with challenges to State authority and legitimacy. Nineteenth century practices of diplomacy cannot meet twenty-first century challenges. This, however, is not an issue I shall address in my further remarks, other than to suggest that governments have to learn new ways of shaping the public discourse, including through greater openness, transparency and accountability.

Our focus, in the workshop, is how best to make use of science, which is the Latin word for knowledge, and technology, which is a form of concentrated capital, in the daily practice of communication and negotiations between representatives of States. Science can help the art of diplomacy, to work for mutual benefit, for promoting peace, stability and prosperity, and for resolving global, regional or bilateral issues amicably, without resorting to sanctions or the use of force. Based on the postulate that scientific and technological advances increasingly shape international relations, the workshop is about how States can get together to tackle issues such as poverty, climate change, and inclusive growth and development, by leveraging instruments that simply did not exist in an earlier era.

The public policy challenge

We are going to face challenges of staggering proportions in the coming decades. By 2050, the world will have 9 billion people, creating pressures on fresh water, proteins, energy, and other resources. Meanwhile, current global and national imbalances will invariably contribute to conflict and violence, manifesting around racial, ethnic or religious lines. National demands will have to be balanced within sustainable limits. How do we do this? One answer is, the same way as human beings have progressed since the European renaissance through to the industrial revolution and afterwards, by increases in productivity, brought about by the application of science and technology to production processes. That might provide a partial answer, at best.

Another option is to lower expectations and reduce consumption. This will be difficult. Of the current world population of nearly 7 billion, an estimated 1.2 billion live on less than $1per day, and 3 billion on less than $2 a day. About 44% of Indians do not have access to commercially available energy. The aspirations of these have-nots are rising. Aggregate global consumption levels are therefore unlikely to decline, and in fact, much more likely to increase substantially.

While we pursue low energy consumption growth models, our collective genius must focus on our one remaining option: a new ethic of multilateral cooperation, based on more responsive governance within and across nations. Massive commitments are required to reduce poverty and hunger and redress the impact of climate change. This needs energised international cooperation and a better balance between the surplus and deficit countries through investments in infrastructure, energy and environment-friendly technologies. It also needs a commitment to build new national and international partnerships and human resource development for delivering the required public goods at an accelerated pace. Science or knowledge-based diplomacy can play a critical role in pursuing such cooperation.

In the multilateral arena, the most interesting United Nations-led initiative for science-based diplomacy began with a mandate from its Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to UNCTAD in 2001. ECOSOC asked UNCTAD to develop special programmes and organise workshops to train diplomats, scholars and journalists in science diplomacy to assist developing countries, in particular, the least developed amongst them, in international negotiations for the evolving norms on standards setting. These programmes have helped developing country representatives in conducting negotiations on technical issues in which they have vital stakes, such as trade-related intellectual property rights, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Convention to Combat Desertification, resource management, and generally in the area of multilateral trade and climate change negotiations. These Conventions are also examples of how scientists and members of civil society have participated in global norm setting and rule making on important issues of global governance.

India’s development model

As a latecomer to rapid development, over the past two decades in particular, India has shown herself to be dynamic, flexible and innovative. She will also remain demographically well endowed well into the twenty-first century. Favourable factors for continued rapid growth are available at this present, transient moment, but on condition that India harness the younger generation as productive members of the workforce. This will be critically predicated on India’s ability both to educate and train this burgeoning young population and provide them gainful employment. The scale and rapidity of economic change have generated uneven development and inequalities. There have been exceptional rewards for those who use their capital and skills to take advantage of the new opportunities. But many, especially those outside the organised economy, have been left beyond the ambit of the transforming landscape. A very special effort is, therefore, required to make India’s growth stable, sustainable, equitous, and inclusive, and bring into the development processes a fourth of the population that is currently on the periphery.

The hallmarks of India’s inclusive growth and development strategy, which have a direct bearing on its foreign policy, include:

A quest for rapid growth for wealth-creation for our peoples in order to bring to them the fruits of development – particularly education, health and social security;

Pursuit of a growth model that creates employment and equal opportunities, and that is regionally balanced and sustainable;

Construction of a modern, knowledge and science-based society; and

Achievement of the development objectives within a democratic framework and through responsive governance.

The key government initiatives have naturally followed these priorities. In education, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Right to Education Act to universalise access to education; in health, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and the Janani Suraksha Yojana, to provide greater healthcare access and improved maternal and child health; the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Food Security Act for employment and nutrition for the poor; a National Action Plan for Climate Change and National Solar Mission for energy security; and the Right to Information Act and unique identity numbers to improve the reach of welfare schemes and services, including banking. These priorities are reflected also in India’s emerging development partnerships.

India’s initiatives in science and diplomacy

How science or knowledge plays a part in India’s overseas programmes can perhaps be best illustrated through our experience in Afghanistan. We have hed an important role in that country’s reconstruction over the past nine years. Our financial commitments are substantial for a non-traditional donor. Our expanding development partnership covers all parts of Afghanistan and the entire gamut of development activities. In response to the requirements of the Afghan people, as conveyed to us by their representatives at the district, provincial and national levels, we are building everything from toilets to transmission lines. These activities span four broad areas: humanitarian assistance, infrastructure projects, quick gestation small development projects (SDPs), and capacity-building and skills development.

On the humanitarian side, we run five medical missions that provide free medical care and medicines to the poor. About a third of the 6.2 million children in school, of whom 38% are girls, have been getting, for the past five years, 100 grams of Indian high protein biscuits as part of WFP’s Nutrition Supplement Programme, which is a big incentive to draw young children to school.

The SDPs, which are projects conceived, proposed and implemented by Afghans in the provinces and districts, lie at the heart of the Indian development model in Afghanistan. These carry a modest budget ranging generally between $100-500,000 each, with a cap of $1 million, and bring direct and tangible benefit to the people. While the majority of the projects supported have been in the social sector, for building schools, clinics and public health centres, of late they have included micro-hydel, small irrigation, and solar electrification projects. We have implemented 50 SDPs since 2008, from the Wakhan corridor in Badakhshan in the North to Kandahar in the South, and 50 more projects are in the pipeline.

In more recent years, our greatest emphasis has been on human resource development, predicated on the belief that only the Afghans can take care of Afghanistan. We cannot develop Afghanistan. We can only help create an enabling environment for Afghans to develop themselves.

India has the largest programme in Afghanistan to train Afghan public servants abroad in specialized institutions, in the same institutions where Indian public servants are trained, and each year 675 Afghans come to India for this. Many of them go to technical institutions for IT programmes, or for auditing, accounting, financial management, and areas of applied science and technology. And we have the biggest university scholarship programme in Afghanistan, enabling its students to obtain undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in India – also 675 a year, and of which the number of women has been steadily increasing. There are at least five Afghan women scholarship holders currently studying medicine at the prestigious Lady Harding Medical College, and a growing number of women students in universities all over India.

Our role in Afghanistan, thus, goes beyond the financial aspect of expending development funds. Our unique selling proposition is building institutions and developing human resources. Our massive training and scholarship programmes have begun to provide the country with a new generation of educated and skilled workforce.

Since in this workshop we are discussing science or knowledge-based diplomacy, I would like to share with you a specific innovative Indian project in Afghanistan, whose video-satellite hub is located not far from the NIAS campus in Bangalore, managed by the Indian telecommunications firm TCIL. This is a project providing telemedicine facilities between the Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health (IGICH) in Kabul and two Indian super speciality post-graduate medical institutes in Lucknow and Chandigarh. It is part of a larger project set up by India for the SAARC countries to help improve healthcare delivery and promote medical education and exchanges between doctors in SAARC countries and Indian specialists. IGICH is the largest children’s hospital in Afghanistan, with 400-bed capacity. Besides tele-surgery and speciality referrals, the telemedicine applications include off-site radiological services, cardiac monitoring, and therapeutic education, particularly in the areas of public and environment health. A remarkable feature of this project is the modest expenditure incurred for what it does – just Rs. 21 million, equivalent to about $440,000, which includes the establishment cost, equipment, connectivity, and running expenses for a year. Indian projects in Afghanistan, with purchasing power parity allowing for lower materials and consultancy costs, show much more ‘bang for the buck’.

Another initiative devised by the Ministry of External Affairs with developing partner countries is the Indian Technical and Cooperation Programme (ITEC), centred on sharing experiences, transfer of technology, and capacity building. ITEC brings 5,000 professionals from our partner countries into Indian institutions for short-term training. One of the participating institutions is located not far from here, the Indian Institute of Science, which conducts an ITEC training programme on bio e-energy. ITEC also sends Indian experts to and sets up projects in developing countries, responding to their specific needs. In addition to its programme for Afghan students, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations brings in over 1,500 students from other developing countries to India on scholarship, 24% of whom are pursuing academic programmes in science including agricultural science, and engineering.

India is currently engaged in rolling out a programme that has generated remarkable resonance in Africa, the Pan-African e-Network project. This will link one major university and one major hospital from each from participating countries to counterpart Indian institutions. The connectivity has been offered to 53 countries, of which 47 are setting up or using the network. The tele-education coverage under this project will result in 2,000 students from Africa annually accessing e-courses offered by selected India universities.

Prospects of India-U.S. cooperation

There is considerable scope for pursuing science or knowledge-based diplomacy between India and the United States. There are few countries in the world with which India shares such basic identity of values and interests as with the United States. We have plural, tolerant, secular, and democratic societies. Our scientific engagement was modest in size but significant in its impact in the years immediately following India’s Independence, even when our political relations were not what they are today. This cooperation resulted in the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur exactly half a century ago, as also the National Council for Educational Research and Training and India’s agricultural universities, which became the progenitors of the Green Revolution and helped India emerge from her ‘ship-to-mouth’ existence. The United States also contributed to the initial phase of our civilian space and atomic energy programmes. A few words, in this context, on the current India-U.S. Science and Technology agenda will not, therefore, be out of place.

The key areas of cooperation can be clustered under three broad groupings. First, are the high-technology and dual-purpose areas, nuclear, space, biotechnology, nano-technology, and defence and counter-terrorism materials and technologies. Under this cluster, the impediments to growing the partnership are being dismantled, beginning with the India-U.S. Agreement on Civil Nuclear Cooperation. During his visit to New Delhi, President Obama indicated that the United States will now work to integrate India into the technology control regimes: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Wassenaar Arrangements, and the Australia Group for dual-purpose chemical precursors and feedstocks. Literally, the sky is the limit for such cooperation. And an example of it is NASA’s contribution to ISRO’s Chandrayan Project to land on the moon.

A second cluster is composed of areas that directly touch the lives of the people – agriculture, education, clean energy (including clean coal and carbon capture), clean water, sanitation, climate science, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Within these, there are issues that can be simultaneously addressed in the commercial domain, such as post-harvest technologies and facilitating collaborations to develop affordable products and services suited to the scales and levels of income in developing countries, including through frugal engineering, where India has growing expertise.

And finally, there exists the so far largely unexplored potential of third-country cooperation in areas like food security, healthcare, and skills development and capacity-building. For example, India and the United States can contribute together to the regeneration of Afghan agriculture. The task at hand is not complex. It requires financial support for certain inputs like seed and fertilizers, credit facilities for the farmers, together with quality extension work to be provided by Afghan agriculture scientists. The United States could provide the physical infrastructure for an Afghan agriculture university. India, which has faced and overcome a similar challenge in the past, and shares the agro-climatic and social conditions that prevail in Afghanistan, can provide the curriculum, the pedagogic materials, and teachers for such a project. While the new institution is being created, India can bridge the demand for expertise by training Afghan agriculture and rural credit experts, for which there is available capacity in Indian agriculture universities and rural credit institutions, such as NABARD. The basic assumption here is that, notwithstanding the differences in economic and scientific strengths between India and the United States, we are both knowledge-driven economies and our respective scientific and institutional strengths can be pooled together, with profit, in third countries.

Professor Ramamurthy conveyed to our Foreign Secretary that the aim of this workshop is to increase understanding of the power of science in diplomacy. Part of my current portfolio in the Ministry of External Affairs, in Public Diplomacy, besides increasing an understanding about India’s foreign and security policies for both foreign and domestic audiences, is to provide feedback to Government to improve policy formulation. What better can I do here other than to learn from the established practitioners of science-based diplomacy who are participating in this workshop? India is not a traditional donor country, and science has never been viewed by us as a core foreign policy concern. While we have pursued science-based initiatives in our interaction with fellow developing countries, we have to learn how precisely to mainstream science and technology in our growing development partnerships and assistance programmes. We also need to undertake an exercise in strategic planning and prioritisation in this domain. Such initiatives promise good rewards, for better articulation and implementation of science-based diplomacy and development initiatives will particularly resonate, in a positive way, with our partner countries, who share problems similar to the one’s faced by us.

Recommendations

I have concrete suggestions for further discussion among the experts present here, many of whom are established practitioners of science-based diplomacy and have contributed to our nuclear and space programmes and our energy and defence industries:

The Foreign Service Institute could consider instituting mid-level courses on making use of science and technology-based diplomacy, both for Indian foreign service officers and for diplomats and public servants from our partner countries, in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology and NIAS. We could also get valuable inputs for this exercise from experts from AAAS.

India and the United States could explore possibilities of working together in third countries, beginning with Afghanistan.

India could accelerate trans-border science and technology-based initiatives under SAARC and other regional forum where India has membership to deal with cross-cutting trans-border challenges – such as management of pandemics and fragile eco systems, a case in point being the preservation of the unique delta and mangroves of the Sunderbans, and the Biosphere, Forest and Tiger Reserve shared between India and Bangladesh.

India could greatly enlarge its current programme of skills development and capacity-building, which is a cost-effective and efficient way to help our partner countries develop themselves.

"The ascent of man”, the eminent scientist, J. Bronowski, reminded us in 1973, "is always teetering in the balance.” He said so in the context of the danger of disjunction between knowledge and ethics, between knowledge and integrity, and between knowledge and the idea of civilisational progress. Science is neutral in value: it has been the motor for innovative technologies that have transformed the world. We can use it too, more pro-actively than we have done so far, as an instrument of policy in our diplomatic practices, for forging better relationships, for the common public good and to improve the human condition. Our national leaders reflect and embrace this vision. We, therefore, have a great opportunity to harness our inventiveness to work together in this new area, bilaterally, in third countries, regionally and globally.

(Source- Jayant Prasad @ www.mea.gov.in)