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Technology and small-scale production
01.12.1995
We face a future in which rapid technical change will affect developed countries as well as the modern sectors in developing countries; but in which the poor majority of developing countries will be excluded from most of the benefits of such change. As trade barriers are relaxed in the global market place poor small scale producers are obliged to compete next to businesses with access to equipment and knowledge of a far greater technical sophistication. This article points to the crucial role of technology for small-scale businesses and argues that market forces alone will not deliver the technologies that the poor need fast enough to prevent the gap widening between the modern sector (the 'included') and the traditional sector ('the excluded').