Whether eliminating hunger or developing global partnerships, the concerted effort to meet the needs of the world’s population requires that those who serve and are served have the ability to take advantage of opportunities developed. That ability is capacity and capacity evolves from education.

With increasing frequency, officials in low and middle income countries are coming to the conclusion that they must build up their science, technology and innovation (STI) capacity in order to make demonstrable progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); raise productivity, wealth, and standards of living by developing new, competitive economic activities to serve local, regional, and global markets; and address social, economic, and ecological problems specific to each country (Watkins, Osifo-Dawodu, Ehst & Cisse, 2007, para. 4).

Agricultural and environmental husbandry, access to energy and access to health care are the most visible needs of those in developing countries, yet foundational to these are infrastructure— both regulatory and physical, and collaboration—both as internal, public support and external partnerships (Watson, Crawford, & Farley, 2003). The World Bank identifies four essential factors for successful development of human capital, environments, and support systems that facilitate innovation:

• * Education for the knowledge economy refers to foundational secondary and tertiary education and lifelong learning, as well as specialized education in technology, science, and communications;



• * Research and development (R&D): Producing and acquiring economically relevant knowledge mandates activities that lead to applied, rather than theoretical knowledge;



• * Technology acquisition and diffusion: Using existing knowledge to improve industrial competitiveness “focus(es) on helping the private sector absorb and utilize technology that is already in use elsewhere in the world” (Science, Technology, and Innovation, 2007, para. 5); and



• * Science and technology policy making capacity refers to the ability of policy makers to “understand the challenges and opportunities flowing from the global economy and to devise appropriate policies” (Science, Technology, and Innovation, 2007, para. 6).

Underlying each of these factors is education and the use of knowledge at multiple levels in science, technology, and innovation, each of them problem-based and solution-oriented. An example of operationalizing the four factors outlined by the World Bank is Juma’s (2007) description of infrastructure initiatives that incorporate funding for engineering education, one way of addressing the World Bank’s emphasis on sustainability at the local level. Juma identifies key elements as road and rail construction and upgrades, improvements to ports and harbors, and enhanced telecommunication systems.

Lindholm (2007) describes a combination public-private economic collaboration that revitalized an area of the former East Germany, relying heavily on existing, underemployed scientists and entrepreneurial-minded intermediaries who could facilitate collaboration. Both Lindholm (2007) and Juma (2007) stress the importance of having in place people who can identify strategic opportunities and people to forecast human capacity needs. In fact, the importance of growing the numbers of variously skilled workers is a common point in development, one also stressed by the World Bank. They characterized it as, “Producing knowledge intensive, technologically sophisticated, higher value goods and services is not possible without a trained management cadre and labor force with the appropriate mix of technical and vocational skills” (Science, Technology, and Innovation, 2007, para. 2). Such a group would, by necessity, include scientists experienced in research and development, and engineers and technicians to adapt and use the resultant technologies for specific pursuits. To that end, “vocational, secondary and tertiary education must all contribute to turning out graduates with the necessary skills. Moreover, since the skills required by today’s labor market may not be the same as those that will be required in the future, a process of lifelong learning must be built into the education system. And at all levels and life-cycle stages, the education system must work with the private sector to understand and respond to its needs” (Science, Technology, and Innovation, 2007, para. 2-3).