Published
Professor Xiaolan Fu speaks at the first annual STI Forum and interviews with China Daily
TMCD Director Professor Xiaolan Fu partcipated as a moderator of the first annual multi-stakeholder Science, Technology and Innovation Forum at the UN. Progress in science, technology and innovation would be key to delivering the Sustainable Development Goals, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said at the opening of the STI Forum.
Convened by the President of the Economic and Social Council, the forum is intended to facilitate interaction, matchmaking and the establishment of networks so as to identify and examine technology needs and gaps while making it easier to develop, transfer and disseminate relevant technologies for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “This multi-stakeholder forum, which will take place each year until 2030, will pool ideas, and find ways to incentivize, scale up and adopt breakthrough solutions,” said Mr. Ban, adding that he hoped it would be “a new way of doing things at the United Nations”.
While innovation was embedded in the 2030 Agenda as Goal 17, it — together with science and technology — cut across all the Goals as an important part of implementation, he said, emphasizing how progress would be critical for delivering on all the Goals, from poverty eradication to food security and climate change. “Linking science, technology and innovation with progress in sustainable development at the ground level is the greatest challenge. That is the gap this forum is expected to close,” he stressed. -
Xiaolan Fu, Director of the Technology and Management Centre for Development at Oxford University, participating as moderator, drew attention to uneven technological capabilities between developed and developing countries, and underscored the need for Governments, international organizations, the private sector and academia to work together in order to identify needs of the marginalized.
Read more about the Forum here
China Daily also interviewed Professor Fu at the Forum about China's role and progess on the topics of STI.
"On the progress that China has made in technology and innovation, Fu said the country has made a lot of progress on several fronts: the attitude toward innovation has changed a lot in the past decade, which has made indigenous innovation a top priority in China's development strategy."