The Concept of Appropriate Technology
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A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Menck, Karl-Wolfgang Article — Digitized Version The concept of appropriate technology Intereconomics Suggested Citation: Menck, Karl-Wolfgang (1973) : The concept of appropriate technology, Intereconomics, ISSN 0020-5346, Verlag Weltarchiv, Hamburg, Vol. 08, Iss. 1, pp. 8-10, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02927517 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/138763 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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It is per- management. entry of the semi-developed haps a sympton of our time that There is no basis for a belief nations into world trade in Brazil, a country particularly that the developing countries manufactures. generous to foreign investors, will abandon their present ef- insists upon detailed screening forts to diminish the degree of It would be very useful to the --case by case-of the know- technological dependence and technology exporting countries how purchases. to cut down the costs of im- to take note of the described ported know-how. What should changes in the attitude of many One may state without ex- be expected instead is an in- less developed nations towards aggeration that the country crease in the number of coun- the problems of science and technology transfer. Otherwise, offering inspiration these days tries that will follow the road to the developing world in this taken by Argentina, Brazil and serious and unnecessary con- flicts may arise between both respect is Japan that had long India. Most probably, the main ago developed the art of choos- thrust of new policies will be groups that would not serve the ing and buying foreign tech- directed towards elimination of best interests of the parties nology from alternative sources all sorts of restrictive business concerned. In this particular and at low prices. This does practices that accompany the field there is a great need for not mean that the developing sales of technology under li- mutual understanding and for countries lack awareness that censing agreements between keeping all channels of com- Japanese policies and practices foreign technology owners and munication open. It is an en- cannot be imitated elsewhere. domestic manufacturing firms. couraging sign that World in- Their aim is not to create ob- The main argument of the de- tellectual Property Organization stacles to foreign investment veloping countries is that these (WIPO), that represents a meet- and concentrate exclusively on practices, frequently embodied ing place for technology produc- the purchases of know-how, in licensing contracts, are not ing and purchasing countries, but to unravel-for negotiation only illegal in the industrial shows growing awareness of purposes-the traditional pack- countries themselves, but offer the issues involved. The Concept of Appropriate Technology by Dr Karl-Wolfgang Menck, Hamburg* t the end of the second de- too costly because the methods nical methods in the widest A velopment decade the in- made available to them neces- sense which have yet to be dis- dustrial countries' technical aid sitated imports from the indus- covered and provided for the is in the centre of severe criti- trial countries. For this purpose countries of the Third World. cism: the LDCs have had to expend part of their already scarce for- The development of appro- [] to some of the LDCs it has eign exchange. priate technologies is possible made technologies available either by down-grading techni- that they were unable to apply In view of these reproaches, cal methods of the industrial because the necessary qualifi- at least partly justified as they countries according to the re- cations were missing; are, the concept of the technol- ceiving countries' aims and [] to most LDCs technical aid ogy transfer evolved. Particular conditions or up-grading the has brought capital-intensive methods and skills specifically methods known to, and applied methods that ran contrary to geared on the aims and re- in, receiving countries by way the widespread under-employ- quirements of the receiving of supplementing them with ment; countries were to be made technical capabilities of the in- available to the receiving coun- dustrial countries. Partly, meth- [] finally, for many receiving countries technical aid proved tries as appropriate or inter- ods and techniques so far only mediate technology. In this con- held on the record are being HWWA-lnstltut for Wirtschaftsforschung nexion appropriate or inter- practically applied again. It is (The Hamburg Institute for International Economics). mediate technologies are tech- in any case important that ap- 8 INTERECONOMICS, No. 1, 1973 FORUM propriate technologies are not how of industrial countries may gies to protect the goods pro- "white elephants". Methods no well play a vital role in the duced under these measures. longer remunerative or com- shape of experiences already One has, however, not always petitive in industrial countries gained, although the experi- also succeeded in shifting the should therefore not be ex- ences in themselves are not demand onto the domestic pro- ported to the LDCs 1. There have what is meant by appropriate duction and creating the neces- in the past been ample exam- technologies ~. sary markets for the new manu- ples for this misunderstanding: facturing methods. As the ex- the export of outdated German Labour-Intensive Technologies periences of the Kumasi Uni- textile machines to countries of versity in Ghana have taught, the Third World is no construc- Apart from technical charac- one of the reasons may well be tive contribution in the sense teristics, appropriate technolo- that labour-intensive finishing of development policy; such gies are determined by addi- methods in the textile industry, sort of equipment is labour-in- tional economic criteria which metal working and in the timber tensive but at the same time were also set out authoritatively industry can simply not com- also prone to frequent and ex- during the discussion on tech- pete with mass-produced cheap tensive repair. The supply of nical aid'. All measures of this articles imported from various spareparts takes a long time technology are, for instance, to industrial countries. Against and requires heavy foreign ex- be as labour-intensive as pos- these goods, the quantities change expenditure 2. This sort sible in order to lessen under- manufactured according to of thing therefore helps the re- employment in the LDCs. The LDC home-technologies are too ceiving country precious little. industrial countries have recog- insignificant for satisfying the nised and accepted this inten- total demand. Mostly also the It still remains to be clarified tion of the LDCs in their en- prices are higher, and the qual- whether in individual cases cer- deavours towards an appro- ities lower, than those of im- tain raw materials should, when priate technology6. But for the ported merchandise. Local man- applying the principle of appro- present, labour-intensive tech- ufacture and end-assembly are priate technology, in the receiv- nologies pay homage only to moreover in no position to solve ing country be replaced by the aim of lessening under-em- the LDC's big problem of spare- other more readily available ployment. But in spite of the parts and thus fully to eliminate materials. Experiments, such as nominally great differences be- their dependence on imports using timber constructions in- tween wages in industrial coun- even though domestic finishing stead of metal ones, have so tries and those in the LDCs they processes are initially job-creat- far not resulted in cost saving have not in all cases contrib- ing and the assembly, contrary unless people were willing to uted towards an increase of to the finishing, is less knowl- reduce simultaneously the life- exports which, on the other edge-demanding and therefore span and operational quality hand, many LDCs strive at no more geared to the criteria of of the installation. From expe- less intensively. appropriate technology 7. riences of this nature, A. Banjo of the Economic Commission The Criterion of Even the distinctly tabour- for Africa was among those who Export Intensity intensive manufacture of elec- deduced that the utilisation of trical appliances and radio sets Mostly, the foreign exchange helps domestic sales rather materials locally available in requirements have, as a result the LDCs, but mostly no longer than the export to world mar- of labour-intensive appropriate kets. In the latter, the com- used in the industrial countries, technologies, been reduced only would have to be in concur- panies applying appropriate by means of tariff walls in order technology meet with difficulties rence with the development of simultaneously with the mea- new techniques for any specific in asserting themselves against sures of appropriate technolo- cheap mass products in spite purpose'. In this field, the know- 4 See also intermediate technology work of many protectionist mea- programme, Intermediate Technology De- sures a.