Astronomy for Developing Countries

Abstract

AbstractDeveloping countries have many claims on their limited resources and astronomy can expect only a small share of a small “pie”. A useful rule of thumb is that a country’s expenditure on astronomy is likely to be of the same order of magnitude as its per capita Gross National Product multiplied by the number of professional astronomers in the country. In the light of this, we consider how governments of developing countries can help their astronomers, how we can help them and how they can help themselves.