1. Do Good, Keep Us Safe, Make Profit:
The Role of Technology and Corporations for
Economic Development and Global Security
1 Mars, 2012
Uppsala University
Johan Bergenäs
Deputy Director, Managing Across Boundaries
The Stimson Center
1111 19th St., NW 12th Floor
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 223-5956
jbergenas@stimson.org
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2. Technology is good and bad
Food or war Electricity or nuclear weapons
Question we should ask:
How and why do we use high tech and corporations as instruments
to do good?
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3. Controversial topic
• Corporations only want to make money
• Corporations are only responsible to
their shareholders
• Corporations don’t care about public
policy or the common good
• Technology can help people, but it can
also be used for immoral/illegal
purposes, as a means to clamp down on
citizens in dictatorships
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4. What to Expect
• Role for technology and the private
sector in building a framework for
security and economic development
• Sustainable development through
security capacity building (using
technology and corporations as
instruments for good)
• Modern 21st century “whole of society”
solutions: from a Military-Industrial
Complex to a Development-Industrial
Complex
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5. The Managing Across Boundaries Program
“Whole of Society Solutions to Transnational Challenges”
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6. Defining and Emerging Trends in International Relations Today
• Intensified focus on the nexus between
security and development
• “Whole of government” “Whole of
Society” solutions to global challenges
• Increased emphasis on technology as an
antidote to 21st-century security threats
and development challenges
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7. Increased Emphasis on Technology as an Antidote to 21st-Century
Security Threats and Development Challenges:
Indicators From Multinational Organizations
Millennium Development Goal #8 target:
The private sector is an important collaborative
partner in “mak[ing] available the benefits of
new technologies” to “develop a global
partnership for development.”
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8. Increased Emphasis on Technology as an Antidote to 21st-Century
Security Threats and Development Challenges:
Indicators From Multinational Organizations
The International Atomic Energy Agency
Preventing this? Or furthering this?
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9. Increased Emphasis on Technology as an Antidote to 21st-Century
Security Threats and Development Challenges:
Indicators From Governments
Japan
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10. Increased Emphasis on Technology as an Antidote to 21st-Century
Security Threats and Development Challenges:
Indicators From the Private Sector
“Technology is part of every challenge
in the world and a part of every
solution.”
- Jared Cohen, Director, Google Ideas
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11. Increased Emphasis on Technology as an Antidote to 21st-Century
Security Threats and Development Challenges:
Indicators From the Private Sector
Making technology accessible to the masses (partly
through public-private sector links)
Changing/improving lives and making societies
more efficient
Do good, keep us safe, make profit
How to spread this model throughout the world?
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12. Increased emphasis on technology as an antidote to 21st-
century security threats and development challenges:
Indicators From the Ground
Key Challenges include:
•Small arms proliferation and trafficking
•Al Shabaab
•Piracy, other maritime security issues
Capacity shortfalls:
•Border insecurity David Kimaiyo, Director, President’s office, Kenya
•Lacking infrastructure National Focal Point on SALW
•Weak government institutions
Consequences:
•Security threats Development
Challenges
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13. National/Regional Strategy Identified
• Technical capacity and training at border
points and ports
- Arms-detection gear and techniques
- Surveillance systems and scanners
- More effective policing and patrolling at border hot
spots (training)
• Maritime security
• Aerial surveillance
Sustainable development through security
capacity-building
Which sector in society has the
background/technology to fill the capacity
gaps?
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14. Increased emphasis on technology as an antidote to 21st-century
security threats and development challenges:
Indicators From the Ground
Key Challenges include:
•Transnational Crime
•Inflation
•Corruption
Capacity shortfalls:
•Law enforcement
•Communications equipment
•Training
Consequences:
•Security threats Development
Challenges
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15. A Pakistani Border Guard’s Perspective on Development
• Surveillance and detector equipment
at border points (hardware and
software)
• Entrance detection systems
• Mobile phones
• Sophisticate communications system
to communicate along the borders
ustainable development through security
capacity building
hich sector in society has the
background/technology to fill the
capacity gaps? Managing
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16. Sustainable Development through Security Capacity Building
around the World
• Latin American transnational crime
and development
• From a tourist- to a trade-based
economy for security and
development in the Caribbean Basin
• Middle Eastern and North African
migration, non-state actor
challenges, democracy, and
development
• Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian
energy security and development
• East African and Southeast Asian
public health, security, and
development
• Southeast Asian climate change
adaption and development
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17. Sustainable Development through Security Capacity
Building around the World
Freighter and Communications C4I systems
container security
IT security
Command and control systems Aerial Surveillance
Technology to protect
Port security critical infrastructure Airport security
Border security
Financial control Underwater security
Effective export controls
Urban security and Training and technology to law
public transportation enforcement, police, first responders
monitoring Maritime surveillance and emergency personnel
What sector in society has the background/technology to fill the capacity gaps?
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20. From a Military-Industrial Complex to a Development
Industrial Complex: the Swedish Example
Technology as an Instrument
to Achieve National Goals:
Defense (1648 – 1945)
Cold War defense and security (1945 – 1991)
Trade security (1980 – today)
Sustainable development (today )
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21. The Development Industrial Complex:
• Historic commitment to human security and sustainable economic development globally
• Robust high technology and communications sectors; use it as an instrument to achieve
national/international goals
• Gunilla Carlsson wants “less talk, more action” with development assistance
• SIDA’s overall goal is to create conditions for poor people to improve their lives…sustainable
development through security capacity building
• History of successful government and industry collaboration for the benefit of Swedish society
• A very strong, knowledgeable and engaged civil society
A new profile issue for Sweden?
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23. Back to Africa: Development-Industrial Complex in Action
Pic from Uppsala on • SIDA and/or other Swedish
msb, sida, kenya government agencies would provide
funding
• MSB would be responsible for
capacity-building experience and
oversight
• High technology corporations would
design/provide tailor made solutions
in terms of tech and training to backfill
capacity shortfalls
• Swedish and local NGOs:
- provide local ownership
- Transparency
- maximize the investments on the ground for the
immediately impacted communities
Sustainable Development through Security/Technology Capacity Building
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24. The question is not if technology and corporations are good or bad!
The question is…
How do we tap into high tech and corporations' potential and find innvoative
solutions to use them as instruments to do good
Thanks for listening!
Send me an email if you are in Washington, or if I can help you with anything!
jbergenas@stimson.org
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