TECHNOLOGY-ASSESSMENT - SOME QUESTIONS FROM A DEVELOPING-COUNTRY PERSPECTIVE

The emergence of technology assessment did not occur in a societal or value vacuum; neither did its practice. Today's TA expertise is the outcome of historically located concerns, still unique to a particular narrow space (''Euro America'') and a narrow time frame (post-1960s). Them are wide cultural, economic, societal and historical variations in the developing world as compared to the developed Western nations. This variation limits the usefulness of the simple transfer of concepts developed in the West. There are also many different potential stakeholders in developing countries. These also include those outside the formal sectors who variously define desirable and undesirable aspects of the social and other factors of technology. This results in different cultural definitions of ethics, different visions of gender equality, different attitudes to the environment, different contents and values in local knowledge systems, and different social organizations associated with a given technology. An effective TA should recognize this multiplicity. It requires cognition, action, and debate on these key factors. At times this becomes an unavoidable developmental debate.