Information Resources and Technology Transfer Management in Developing Countries

Citation

Sturges, P. (1999), "Information Resources and Technology Transfer Management in Developing Countries", Asian Libraries, Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 182-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1999.8.5.182.8

This title has a good claim to be the best book on information matters yet to come out of Africa. It displays both the author’s own well‐informed and inquisitive mind, and the stimulating influence of the teachers he encountered at Strathclyde University, where an early version was written as his PhD thesis.

It aims to show the significance of information in the development process, and assess the role of information management in technology transfer. This is difficult in a very important way. The history of information management in most of Africa, including his native Kenya, from where the author’s examples are drawn, has been almost universally disastrous. Thus the author is faced with the problem of constructing positive and useful lessons from negative experience. Of course, this obliges him to turn towards the successful Asian economies as a measure of what can be achieved by governments and enterprises which have a strong feeling for the value of information. Although his view of the Asian experience may seem a little rose‐tinted to those who are well versed in the inside stories of the Asian information world, he uses the model effectively to provide a benchmark for his critique of African governments and institutions.

The core of the book consists of two lengthy and thoroughly worked out case studies:

1. 1

   the Kenyan National Power Alcohol Programme, and

2. 2

   the Kenyan National Car Project.

These were both so appallingly mismanaged that the author must sometimes have wanted to throw up his hands in despair and give up the task of drawing useful lessons from the mess. However, he persisted and is able to present the reader with the anatomy of failed technology transfer projects to pick over and learn from.

Central to the argument of the book is a call for a transparent terrain or environment in which the development process can take place. The author contrasts this with the opacity resulting from the activities of corrupt, ignorant and lazy officials and their business counterparts which he describes so effectively. Sometimes the terminology does tend to run away with itself and get lost in the land of mixed metaphors. However, by and large the message is clear. With transparency will come a culture of informed rationality, which will enable projects to be planned intelligently in relation to all the relevant factors, whether technical, cultural, financial, or political. This is admirable and, although it sounds dangerously idealistic, a transparent political and economic process, open to scrutiny and criticism, may be the only way that the poorer developing countries can break out of the cycle of mismanagement and failure.

Asian readers will certainly find a good deal to ponder here, even if in many cases they might feel that their countries have avoided the worst of what is described. As with all good books, there is enough that is universal in this one to make it worth the attention of any reader interested in its subject.