Donors Funding Technology: 10 Recommendations
Funding the global public good of technology is a useful way for donors to leverage the impact of their aid. Different types of technologies appear to be important to development progress, and to spread, in different ways. ‘Lab coat technologies’ (inventions) spread easily and improve quality of life, ‘process technologies’ (institutions) spread with difficulty and are important to economic growth. For all donor interventions, however, it appears that context matters—the same technology or investment has varied impact in different environments. While there still may be some universal ‘best practices,’ there is also a considerable heterogeneity in what works where. Donors should take the importance of context on board when designing their technology interventions.
Reading Development 