Recent technological advances, particularly in microelectronics and telecommunications, biotechnology, and advanced materials, pose critical challenges and opportunities for developing countries, and for the development banks and other organizations that serve them. Those countries that fail to adapt to the transformations driven by new technologies in industry, agriculture, health, environment, energy, education, and other sectors may find it difficult to avoid falling behind. This book represents a joint effort by the World Bank and the National Research Council to survey the status and effect of technology change in key sectors and to recommend action by the development organizations, government, private sector and the scientific and technological community.

World human population is expected to reach upwards of 9 billion by 2050 and then level off over the next half-century. How can the transition to a stabilizing population also be a transition to sustainability? How can science and technology help to ensure that human needs are met while the planet's environment is nurtured and restored? Our Common Journey examines these momentous questions to draw strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies' efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well being. The book argues that societies should approach sustainable development not as a destination but as an ongoing, adaptive learning process. Speaking to the next two generations, it proposes a strategy for using scientific and technical knowledge to better inform future action in the areas of fertility reduction, urban systems, agricultural production, energy and materials use, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation, and suggests an approach for building a new research agenda for sustainability science. Our Common Journey documents large-scale historical currents of social and environmental change and reviews methods for "what if" analysis of possible future development pathways and their implications for sustainability. The book also identifies the greatest threats to sustainabilityâ€"in areas such as human settlements, agriculture, industry, and energyâ€"and explores the most promising opportunities for circumventing or mitigating these threats. It goes on to discuss what indicators of change, from children's birth-weights to atmosphere chemistry, will be most useful in monitoring a transition to sustainability.

DIVFocuses on the WTO and intellectual property rights in international law /div

An edited volume on factors determining success or failure of energy technology innovation, for researchers and policy makers.

The lives of humans and aliens become intertwined in this fast paced adventure story. Life on Earth will never be the same after the COMING OF MARSHAL, And MARSHAL BOOK 2 is filled with all sorts of misadventures, as the human heroes and aliens try to learn to work together. I try to put the reader in the middle of the action and sometimes the action gets intense, as it should in any good adventure story. The book is self censoring. More sensitive readers are advised when reader discretion is needed.

This book addresses the question: how effective are countries in promoting the innovation needed to facilitate an energy transition? At the heart of the book is a set of empirical case studies covering supply and demand side technologies at different levels of maturity in a variety of countries. The case studies are set within an analytical framework encompassing the functions of technological innovation systems and innovation metrics. The book concludes with lessons and recommendations for effective policy intervention.

Developed in collaboration with the Nigerian Academy of Science, this report explores the ways in which science-based private enterprises can be created and encouraged in Nigeria and other developing countries to provide products and services that government is unable to supply in a timely and sustainable manner. Focusing on three critical challenges to health and developmentâ€"safe water, electrical lighting, and malaria therapyâ€"the report identifies a sample technology to address each of these challenges with potential for commercialization in Nigeria and Africa, and uses that sample technology to identify opportunities and barriers to creating the science-based enterprises in Nigeria.

"Mody ties together much of the book with the currently compelling concept of globalization. For scholars it provides a wealth of current references and sketches a historical overview that is mostly absent in other volumes that attempt a summary like this one." —COMMUNICATION RESEARCH TRENDS International and Development Communication: A 21st Century Perspective examines the exciting field of international and development communication and illustrates how this field of study is composed and how it has grown. Derived from the successful Handbook of International and Intercultural Communication, Second Edition, this book opens with an updated and expanded introduction by Bella Mody, showcasing the effects of globalization, and contains those chapters from the Handbook that deal with international and development communication. International and Development Communication provides a historical perspective and a contemporary analysis of the field of international communication and its application to development communication. The book examines how communication media and telecommunications are considered central to globalization and to national development, and discusses globalization in history, the role of media, changes in structural biases of media and telecommunication institutions, national forces of capitalism, and biases in international and development communication messages. provides a historical perspective and a contemporary analysis of the field of international communication and its application to development communication. The book examines how communication media and telecommunications are considered central to globalization and to national development, and discusses globalization in history, the role of media, changes in structural biases of media and telecommunication institutions, national forces of capitalism, and biases in international and development communication messages. The book, divided into two parts, revolves around media institutions and the conditions under which they have been used by the state and private capital. Part One covers international communication and presents the thinking of several well-known authors from areas such as South Asia, East Asia, Europe, and North America. Part Two focuses on development communication applications by various active researchers and professors, drawn from Latin America, South Asia, and North America. With contributions from experts in the field, each part of the book begins with a chapter on theories and closes with one on issues. Chapters within each part examine the distinct and broadly recognized topics of research within each area, such as media corporations in the age of globalization, transnational advertising, the global-local dialectic and polysemic effects, development communication campaigns, communication technology and development, and international development communication.