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APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY About the concept of appropriate

technology within the context of developing nation in order to understand the characteristics of technology that play very significant role towards the success of technology transfer.

Further discussions are about the assessment, relevant approach, government policies, and integration aspects follows by other issues related to the appropriate technology

Concept Of Appropriateness The concept of ‘appropriate’ technology

is the limited relevance to industrialized country of its structural, socio-cultural and techno-economic of developing countries.

Developing nation has to skip some of the five stages in innovation theory

Method that suite for developed countries may not suite the developing countries

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Definition

Appropriate technology is the choices of right technology to be transfer in order to catalyze growth that appropriate the environment strategically and to be utilized into several areas such as: Technological Techno-economics National aggregate capability Socio-cultural Political Environmental Legal

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Ranges

There are a few ranges concern in the context of appropriate technology as follows: Labor intensive Low technology Knowledge-based on expert system/soft

technologies

Improper transfer of technology to developing countries causes many social, cultural, political, environmental, regional and economic problems.

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The success in technology transfer is related to the appropriateness of the transferred technology.

There are three methods for adapting technology to be more appropriate to the developing country condition: Downscaling of large-scale technology Upgrading of traditional technology Adaptation of imported technology

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Criteria For Appropriate Technology Normally there is no “one size fits all”

solution The appropriateness should be

determined by: Acceptability Adaptation Institutionalization Goals of a society rather than the function of

the technology Achieve a self-reliance and increase in

domestic technology development

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An appropriate technology for developing countries should satisfy seven important criteria: Effectiveness: fulfill its purpose Affordability: trade-offs between cost and

effectiveness Cultural acceptability: fit the local user Local sustainability: not be over-dependent

to imported skills Efficiency: more efficient than others Measurability: impact and performance

needs evaluation Political responsibility: political stable and

not altering the political balance

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Assessment Of Appropriate Technology Firm level Limited to monetary cost-benefit

assessment (quantitative) that will isolated from socio-cultural, technical and regional environment (subjective)

Economic, social, environment and anthropocentric factors often excluded

Lacking of guidelines and non-quantifiable factors

Shortage of data and information Rely on quantitative data input

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Appropriate Context For Developed Nation Free from outside forces Dynamism of innovation Self-originate potential R&D and pure research activities at

heart of research Enable to integrate production system

in developing nation Can control transfer process

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Appropriate Context For Developing Nation The appropriate context for developing

countries is heavily depend on economic assessment

North countries (developed) Technology competitiveness Innovation

South countries (developing) Technology development Technology transfer

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Machine-Intensive And Labor-Intensive Approach Machine-intensive approach views as:

Using imported technology, urban-based, large-scale industries

Arguments: Huge scarce of foreign capital involvement by

nation that has vast cheap labor forces Issues of unemployment rates and wages

 Intermediate technology

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Advance and Machine-Intensive Technologies Developing countries implement labor-

intensive. But, proven that less developing nation

is successful in implement large-scale machine-intensive.

The arguments should be discussed: Size of investment Increase the science and technology gap

between developed and developing nation Initiate inward technical and technological

convergence between developing nation

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Reasons Of Exercising Machine-Intensive Technology Automation erodes low labor cost in

business and manufacture may possible in developed nation

Technology increases the efficiency, lowering the cost of managing information

In products and processes, industry are crossing boarder and into high technology category

Creating new opportunities as a result of losing production flexibility and innovation capability

Technology saving capital per unit of output, but increase in capital per worker employed

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