Future of Science, Alchology and Innovation
impact of education skills and work
Answers
Science, technology, and innovation have brought tremendous advances around the world, from new communication tools to approaches for delivering life-saving health care. At the same time, change has meant that USAID does not work alone, but rather amid a host of institutions, financial and technology flows, global companies, and international transactions. Global development assistance represents a decreasing, yet still critical, fraction of the total amount of international financial flows. In recent years, USAID has begun to transform itself from its traditional role of designing, implementing, and wholly funding specific projects in individual countries to that of a national and global broker of organizations and resources to achieve greater, more sustainable impact, in a more cost-effective way. Appropriate partnerships with other donor nations/agencies and host nations are vital in reaching development goals, both at the national level and to achieve the global Sustainable Development Goals.
Bearing these changes in mind, USAID should recognize its core strengths: its field experience, role as a convener and catalyst, and ability to learn and adapt, and these strengths should be identified explicitly in future STI strategies identified explicitly in future STI strategies, if appropriate. By building on these strengths, it can take significant steps to position the agency as a global leader. (Recommendation 2.2) The United States brings outstanding scientific, technological, and innovation assets to development challenges through its research institutions, with their long history of applying science and engineering to development problems. U.S. universities, in their own right and in partnership with host-country counterparts, have long been embedded in USAID development planning and execution. Cutting-edge private-sector research enterprises have brought a spirit of entrepreneurship and a culture of innovation to the work of USAID. Institutional innovations at USAID, including the Grand Challenges, Development Innovation Ventures, and a new emphasis on crafting alliances to solve specific problems, have inspired traditional and nontraditional partners to come together, bringing new energy and resources to solve tough problems. As pressure on the U.S. government grows to demonstrate maximum impact for each taxpayer dollar spent on development assistance, institutionalizing the Global Development Lab and the innovations it has introduced will enable USAID to become a powerful, effective conduit for developing countries to access “whole-of-U.S.” expertise related to science, technology, and innovation in the public and private sectors.