2.2.2 Actions for Developed countries and countries with economies in transition
Creation of global EST markets
Developed countries can play special roles in stimulating global transfer of
ESTs. In particular they can:
- Stimulate fair competition in EST markets by discouraging restrictive business
practices such as product dumping to strive out competitors; overly restrictive
conditions on the use of patents and refusal of licencing;
- Reform export credit, political risk insurance and other subsidies for
the export of products or production processes to encourage direct foreign
investment in ESTs and discourage export that lower environmental quality
in developing countries;
- Reduce the use of export controls, export cartels, licensing restrictions;
- Reduce or eliminate tied aid as trade policy measure;
- Ensure requirements of host countries are adequately reflected in project
design.
Strong and open R&D structure
Governments play an important role in providing funding for public R&D programmes
as part of their industrial policies or science and technology development strategy.
To promote the development of ESTs that lack short-term commercial viability,
government funding and public R&D programmes are vital, and appropriate,
reflecting the high rate of social return. For example, governments have been
investing for three decades in R&D for environmentally sound energy technologies
in the energy sector. These programmes are implemented either by government
institutions or in joint partnership with the private sector. Over the past
decade, about 40% of annual national R&D spending within a number of OECD
countries was publicly funded. To increase the rate of development of EST, governments
should therefore increase public funding for R&D in cleaner technologies.
The issue of publicly owned technology transfer and the role that national
regulatory frameworks play in creating demand and market for ESTs was addressed
both in the Rio Summit of 1992 and the UNGASS of 1997. Major findings of the
UNCTAD study are that governments are funding public R&D programmes as part
of their industrial policy aimed at improving their industrial competitiveness.
Strong emphasis is placed on the commercialisation of those technologies developed
from public R&D. In many cases, co-financing with the private sector also
plays an important role. Many governments either transfer or license the patents
of the publicly funded technologies to the private sector as part of their industrial
policy and then the transferred patents follow the rules of the privately owned
technologies and behave just like the other ordinary private IPRs. As a result,
instead of focusing on technologies held by governments, the focus should rather
be on public R&D programmes for ESTs and exploring the feasibility of enhancing
the transfer of such technologies.
Developed countries could enhance flows of technology transfer arising from
their public funded R&D programmes by encouraging or requiring where appropriate
the recipients of such support to transfer the technology as soon as practical;
by entering into co-operation with developing countries on R&D partnerships
and international research institutions.
National and multilateral assistance flows
There is substantial scope for increased flows of ODA aimed at addressing genuine
development objectives. Within this context there is potential to support activities
which assist the transfer of ESTs, also among developing countries, but the
overall development objectives must remain paramount.
Trade assistance programmes supportive of ESTs
ODA is not the only form of public sector finance from developed countries to
support technology transfer. Substantial assistance is provided in the form
of export credit, political risk insurance and other subsidies for the export
of products or production processes. Little of this assistance is provided specifically
for the transfer of ESTs and substantial volumes may transfer environmental
inferior technology or support environmentally damaging projects. Developed
countries can explore ways, such as developing environmental guidelines for
export credit agencies, to refocus their trade assistance activities to avoid
a bias against and promote the transfer of ESTs, and discourage the transfer
of obsolete technologies.
Coordination within donor governments
One major issue regarding the effective transfer of environmentally sound technologies
through public finance is the fact that foreign aid expenditure tends to be
institutionally divorced from other powerful agencies that also have a huge
influence on technology choice and investment patterns, such as trade, industry
and science ministries. It is not uncommon to find governments pursuing seemingly
contradictory international financial policies, and one of the strongest recommendations
in this area is for greater institutional coherence within donor governments
to promote transfer of ESTs.
Intellectual Property Rights and promotion of ESTs
In general, developing countries and their companies tend to have fewer resources
to purchase licenses and fear that strong IPR regimes would impede their access
to patented technologies. To meet this concern, bilateral and multilateral financial
assistance could provide funds for licensing of relevant technologies. This
could be one way for the international regime to support technology transfer
in cases where market-driven, grants, equity investment, and joint venture solutions
are inadequate or infeasible.
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