This Forum, organized by UNESCO, SAICE, the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) and Ordem dos Engenheiros de Moçambique, had the immediate goal of discussing, developing, promoting and initiating a programme of action promoting the role, contribution and awareness of the importance of engineering and technology to poverty eradication. The overall challenge is to improve the access of people living in poverty to the technology that will help change their lives and livelihoods.

The main conclusions, recommendations and call for action of the “International Forum: Engineering and Technology for Poverty Eradication” focused on the need to:

·   Promote the application of engineering and technology to poverty reduction

·   Produce and disseminate information, learning and teaching materials on engineering and technology for poverty reduction

·   Develop a networking, on-line database, virtual library and portal promoting engineering and technology applications for poverty reduction

·   Understand and address the decline of young people going into engineering at university and becoming professional engineers

·   Understand and address the brain drain of engineers

·   Study human resources capacity needs and capacity building in the engineering professions as an urgent priority

·   Promote capacity building in engineering and technology

For further information, click below to read Forum Report and Recommendation and/or contact: Tony Marjoram t.marjoram@unesco.org