Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

The use of new sciences and technologies in developing countries is vital in alleviating poverty and human suffering for the long term. Innovation makes a powerful case for development policies to focus on key sources of economic growth, particularly the use of scientific and technological knowledge and related institutional adjustments. It outlines core areas for policy action, including a focus on platform or generic technologies, defining infrastructure services as foundations for technology, placing universities at the centre of local development and improving science education, spurring entrepreneurial activities, improving the policy environment and focusing on areas of under-funded research for development.