Developing local environmental ingenuity

There are two kinds of "ingenuity": (1) new technologies that help us respond to scarcity (hybrid grains, water irrigation technologies, fuelwood conservation technologies); (2) "social" ingenuity, meaning the social adaptations in form of social institutions (like efficient markets, clear property rights, financial institutions that can provide sufficient capital to entrepreneurs trying to respond to scarcities).

In order to deliver "ingenuity" (to help build local capacity to address problems), overseas development funding from developed countries must be maintained for critical research institutions in developing countries. It is important to build technical capacity in developing countries by sharing expertise in engineering, hydrologics, soil science, forestry, etc. This requires not only training people from developing countries overseas, but also creating well-financed educational and research institutions in developing countries that will attract students back to their home countries when their studies abroad are completed. Developed countries must recognize and promote the important work of NGOs in developing countries and help them to improve inter-NGO communication (by providing them with computers, E-mail, etc.). There has been a tendency in development programmes to focus on large scale, capital intensive projects instead of encouraging the high returns of small projects.