30 April 2014: Member States, international organizations, research institutions, the private sector and civil society convened to discuss possible arrangements for a facilitation mechanism to promote the development, transfer and dissemination of clean and environmentally sound technologies. The first two structured dialogues on technology facilitation organized by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) under Resolution 68/210 took place on 29-30 April 2014, at UN Headquarters in New York, US.

In opening remarks, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “developing and disseminating clean and environmentally sound technologies are central to the success of the post-2015 development agenda,” and called on the international community to provide incentives and institutions to facilitate the development, transfer and deployment of technology for sustainable development.

Participants discussed whether the dialogues should propose a mechanism to coordinate international technology facilitation efforts for all countries and all aspects of clean and environmentally sound technologies, or propose ways for existing mechanisms to be re-oriented, re-deployed and reformed to strengthen coordination in this area.

India noted that Resolution 68/210 mandates discussions on “how” best to create a Mechanism, and not “whether” the Mechanism needs to be created. He highlighted that due to fragmentation in international efforts, a gamut of actions related to technology cooperation at the international level “fall between the cracks,” including comprehensive needs assessment in the context of sustainable development, trials with and comparisons between different technologies, adaptation of technology to local conditions, coordinating action between the technology actors, the financial sector and policy level actors, cross-sectoral and at-scale learning, and at scale capacity building especially for policy design, financial engineering and business model implementation.

Brazil called for the development of a technology facilitation mechanism, per the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) mandate, which could promote synergy among existing technology transfer initiatives, while respecting distinct mandates, and serve as an umbrella for synergies and scaling up initiatives.

The EU stated that ensuring the transfer of modern technologies is mostly a role for the private sector but governments can facilitate it for example by ensuring the rule of law, political stability, and a good enabling and regulatory framework including intellectual property rights (IPR) and in general on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI).

The US noted that in most countries the private sector, universities, innovators and end-users – not the government – are the primary drivers of technological advance. Governments do not own the vast majority of technologies and cannot force those who do to share their knowledge, she added, mentioning that technology cannot be successfully “pulled” in solely by government action but market forces must move technologies organically. Therefore, transfer of technology should be voluntary between parties and on mutually agreed terms and conditions, and barriers to innovation, including discriminatory trade practices and corruption, need to be removed.

Bolivia, on behalf of the Group of 77 and China (G77/China), emphasized that developing countries should be enabled to take part in all stages of the technology cycle with access to finance, capacity building and training, not merely as recipients at the diffusion stage.

The discussions also stressed the role that a technology bank for LDCs can play in these processes.

The next two structured dialogues on technology facilitation will take place on 4 June 2014 and 23 July 2014. The dialogues will result in a summary of discussions and recommendations, including on possible modalities and organization of the possible mechanism, to be submitted by the UNGA President at its 68th session and for consideration and appropriate action by the Assembly at its 69th session. [Structured Dialogues Website] [UNSG Statement] [Letter from UNGA President] [Discussion notes for Dialogues 1 and 2 ] [IISD RS Sources]