科技与发展-跨越的限制

文章来源：http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=9126&extra=page%3D1
Technology and development科技与发展-跨越的限制
Technology and development
科技与发展

The limits of leapfrogging
跨越的限制
Feb 7th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The spread of new technologies often depends on the availability of older ones
新技术的传播往往依靠老技术的存在

Alamy

MOBILE phones are frequently held up as a good example of technology's ability to transform the fortunes of people in the developing world. In places with bad roads, few trains and parlous land lines, mobile phones substitute for travel, allow price data to be distributed more quickly and easily, enable traders to reach wider markets and generally make it easier to do business. The mobile phone is also a wonderful example of a “leapfrog” technology: it has enabled developing countries to skip the fixed-line technology of the 20th century and move straight to the mobile technology of the 21st. Surely other technologies can do the same?

手机经常被用来作为发展中国家技术改变命运的例子。在公路很差、火车很少以及陆路危机四伏的地方，手机替代了旅行，使价格信息能更快更容易地流通，使商人们能涉及更大的市场范围，通常也使做生意更加容易。手机也是“跨越”技术一个精彩的例子：它使发展中国家能够越过20世纪的固定电话技术而直接进入21世纪的移动技术。其它科技是否也能够这么做呢？

Alas, the mobile phone turns out to be rather unusual. Its very nature makes it an especially good leapfrogger: it works using radio, so there is no need to rely on physical infrastructure such as roads and phone wires; base-stations can be powered using their own generators in places where there is no electrical grid; and you do not have to be literate to use a phone, which is handy if your country's education system is in a mess. There are some other examples of leapfrog technologies that can promote development—moving straight to local, small-scale electricity generation based on solar panels or biomass, for example, rather than building a centralised power-transmission grid—but there may not be very many.

很可惜，事实证明移动电话是个特例。正是它的那些特性使它成为一个很好的“跨越者”：它使用无线电工作，因此不需要依靠像道路和电话线一类的物理基础设施；在没有电力网络的地方基站能使用自己的发电机供电；而且你不需要受过很多教育才能使用一部电话，如果你的国家的教育系统很糟糕的话它就很有用（很方便）。还有其它一些“跨越”技术能促进发展的例子——例如采用当地的、小规模的基于太阳能面板和生物原料的发电站，而非建立一个集中的电力传输网络——但这种小型电站可能不是很多。

Indeed, as a recent report from the World Bank points out (see article), it is the presence of a solid foundation of intermediate technology that determines whether the latest technologies become widely diffused. It is all too easy to forget that in the developed world, the 21st century's gizmos are underpinned by infrastructure that often dates back to the 20th or even the 19th. Computers and broadband links are not much use without a reliable electrical supply, for example, and the latest medical gear is not terribly helpful in a country that lacks basic sanitation and health-care facilities. A project to provide every hospital in Ethiopia with an internet connection was abandoned a couple of years ago when it became apparent that the lack of internet access was the least of the hospitals' worries. And despite the clever technical design of the $100 laptop, which is intended to bring computing within the reach of the world's poorest children, sceptics wonder whether the money might be better spent on schoolrooms, teacher training and books.

事实上，最近世界银行的一份报告指出：是中间技术的坚实基础决定了最新科技能否大范围地传播开来。人们很容易忘记：在发达国家，那些21世纪的小发明都是由回溯到20世纪甚至19世纪的基础设施来支持的。例如，计算机和宽带连接如果没有一个稳定的电力供应就没有什么用，而最新的医疗设备在一个缺乏基本的下水道排污系统和医疗设施的国家也没有什么用。一个为埃塞俄比亚每家医院提供一个互联网连接的计划两年前被放弃了，很显然，缺少对英特网的访问能力是这些医院所要担心的事情中最不重要的。尽管有100美元笔记本电脑的聪明技术设计，这是为了让世界上最贫穷的儿童能够使用计算机进行学习，怀疑者说如果把这些钱用在教室、老师培训和书本上是否效果更好。

The World Bank's researchers looked at 28 examples of new technologies that achieved a market penetration of at least 5% in the developed world, and found that 23 of them went on to manage a penetration of over 50%. Once early adopters latch onto something new and useful, in other words, the rest of the population can quickly follow. The researchers then considered 67 new technologies that had achieved a 5% penetration in the developing world, and found that only six of them went on to reach 50%. That suggests that although new technologies are often adopted by a small minority of people in poor countries, they then fail to achieve widespread diffusion, so their benefits do not become more generally available.

世界银行的研究者们考察了28种在发达国家达到至少5％的市场渗透率的新科技，发现其中23种超过了50％的市场渗透率。一旦早期采用新技术的人明白了该技术是新的和有用的，也就是说，其他人很快就会仿效。研究者们随后又考察了65种在发展中国家达到5％的市场渗透率的新技术，发现其中仅有6种达到了50％。这说明新技术在贫穷国家尽管通常被一小部分人所采用，它们却没能传播开来，因此它们的好处也就不能为大多数人所拥有。

Lavatories before laptops
抽水马桶先于笔记本电脑

The World Bank concludes that a country's capacity to absorb and benefit from new technology depends on the availability of more basic forms of infrastructure. This has clear implications for development policy. Building a fibre-optic backbone or putting plasma screens into schools may be much more glamorous than building electrical grids, sewerage systems, water pipelines, roads, railways and schools. It would be great if you could always jump straight to the high-tech solution, as you can with mobile phones. But with technology, as with education, health care and economic development, such short-cuts are rare. Most of the time, to go high-tech, you need to have gone medium-tech first.

世界银行得出结论，一个国家吸收新技术和从中受益的能力依赖于更基本的基础设施的存在。这对发展策略有着清楚的含义。建立一条光纤主干网或将等离子电视投入学校也许比建电力网、污水排放系统、水管、公路、铁路和学校更迷人。如果你总是能直接跳入高科技的解决方案，就像在手机行业那样，那就太好了。但是在科技中，就像在教育、医疗和经济发展中一样，这种捷径很稀有。绝大部分时候，要进入高科技，你必须首先进入中等水平的科技。