Engineer shortage a threat to development, underlines UNESCO’s first global report on engineering
More than ever, the world needs creative engineering solutions to face its biggest challenges, from poverty to climate change. Yet many countries are seeing a decline in the enrolment of young people, especially women, in engineering studies. This slump endangers future engineering capacity, particularly in developing countries where brain drain is an additional problem.
The shortage of engineers is a central theme of the first international report on engineering published by UNESCO, entitled “Engineering: Issues, challenges and opportunities for development”. The Report gives a new perspective on the importance of engineering to development and is intended as a platform for better understanding of engineering, an extraordinarily diverse and pervasive activity that has been central to human progress since the invention of the wheel.
Download the report Engineering: Issues, challenges and opportunities for development.
"In the past 150 years in particular, engineering and technology have transformed the world we live in,” notes UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova in the Report’s foreword. But the benefits they have brought are distributed unevenly throughout the world – nearly three billion people, for instance, do not have safe water, and nearly two billion people are without electricity.
It is vital that we take the full measure of engineering’s capacity to make a difference in the developing world.” Ms Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General
Based on contributions by more than 120 experts around the world, including members of the UK National Commission for UNESCO’s Sciences Committee and Engineering Education Group, the report covers the breadth and depth of engineering. It identifies more than 50 fields of engineering and looks at engineering around the world, giving regional and country perspectives. Focused on engineering’s contributions to sustainable human, social and economic development, it discusses issues, applications and innovation, infrastructure, capacity-building and education.
The escalating demand for engineering talent is highlighted throughout the Report. It is estimated, for instance, that some 2.5 million new engineers and technicians will be needed in sub-Saharan Africa alone if the region is to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of improved access to clean water and sanitation. Meanwhile experts predict the global market for climate change solutions – such as low carbon products and renewable energy systems - will rapidly reach US$1 trillion dollars and continue to grow. At the same time, the shortage of engineers is marked in many countries.
To generate more interest and enrolment, engineering itself requires innovation and transformation, and the Report makes a number of suggestions. New approaches must be developed in education and training, notably hands-on, problem-based learning that reflects engineering’s problem-solving nature. Another major area of growth relates to sustainable or “green” engineering.
The Report also emphasizes the urgent need for improved statistics and indicators on engineering. It is not possible at present, for instance, to compare the numbers or types of engineers per capita around the world, because such data at the international level aggregate scientists and engineers. Refining indicators would drastically improve the information available to policy-makers and planners.
Written: 04/11/2010 , last modified: 04/11/2010
