Technology Needs Assessment Research Articles

Going Local to Global through Technology-Needs Assessment and Development of a Virtual Arctic Youth Wellbeing Network.

Strengths-based approaches to suicide prevention and life promotion in circumpolar regions must engage youth participation and leadership given the impact of suicide on this demographic. We describe the development of a youth-engaged community of practice (CoP) across circumpolar regions, and adaptations to the ECHO model as a foundation for this virtual CoP. We describe youth priorities for learning in the area of mental health and wellbeing, identified through a learning needs assessment. A curriculum was developed to address key areas of interest, including: cultural approaches to mental wellbeing; language-based approaches to mental wellbeing; resilience; government and policy; and suicide prevention. We describe steps taken to adapt the ECHO model, and to introduce Indigenous pedagogical and knowledge sharing approaches into the CoP in order to meet youth learning interests. We conclude that this virtual CoP was a feasible way to create a learning community, and suggest that a priority future direction will be to evaluate the impacts of this virtual CoP on youth engagement, satisfaction and learning.

Inter-sectoral prioritization of climate technologies: insights from a Technology Needs Assessment for mitigation in Brazil.

Technological development is key for national strategies to cope with the Paris Agreement’s goals. Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) aim to identify, prioritize, and diffuse climate change mitigation and/or adaptation technologies in developing countries. Their methodology includes a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework but, although many countries already conducted a TNA, literature lacks discussions on country-specific processes for a TNA, as it usually follows a one-size-fits-all approach. This paper provides empirical evidence on the importance of country-driven processes that help shaping international programmes into country-specific needs and capabilities. It presents lessons learned from a tailored process for identification, prioritization, and selection of mitigation technologies in the scope of a TNA project for Brazil, an exceptional case of a developing country with strong capacity in integrated assessment modelling (IAM) scenarios for guiding its climate strategies. A previous IAM scenario result allowed pre-selecting technologies in six key economic sectors, while other TNAs prioritized no more than three. This allowed the elaboration of an overall ranking from the MCDA, in contrast to sectoral rankings that are mostly employed in other countries’ TNAs. The overall ranking serves not only as a basis for the selection of priority technologies but also provides information on the integrated innovations framework for climate technologies in the country. Further specific findings of the tailored Brazilian TNA approach are discussed in the paper in order to call for the importance that a technology transfer project should not only be country-driven but also conducted through a country-specific process.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11027-022-10025-6.

Effectiveness of aid projects in climate technology familiarization in recipient countries

ABSTRACT Due to inequalities of innovation capacity among nations, climate technologies’ minimizing greenhouse gas emissions require deliberate interventions for adoption and diffusion in developing countries. Aid projects of international development organizations have long served the function of system builders for climate technologies through demonstration projects or barrier removal activities. Emerging transition literature has come up with theories of how project-level niche experiments gradually affect landscape settings through bottom-up evolution. The activities of the aid projects on climate technologies match the posited roles of niche experiments nurturing with the co-evolution of technology, user practices and regulatory structures. This paper provides insight into how climate technologies, previously supported by aid projects, played a role in familiarizing these technologies in recipient countries. Familiarization in this paper is defined as the non-prioritization of climate technology in a country’s Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) document. It was found that increasing project duration lowers the chance of technology’s inclusion in TNA, while higher project cost increased the odds of inclusion. Given the time-consuming nature of capacity building over multiple fronts, the effectiveness of future projects depends on donors’ ability to commit aid over multiyear periods to sustain scale-up.

Technology needs assessment for climate change adaptation: Experiences of Mauritius and Seychelles

Besides access to climate finance and capacity building, developing countries, comprised mainly of least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS) have negotiated for increased technology transfer to support their climate change adaptation. The Global Environment Facility has been supporting LDCs and SIDS to develop technology needs assessments (TNAs) to leverage international climate finance, and 62 countries have conducted a TNA to date. Ten SIDS are currently completing their TNAs, and 9 more will start the process in 2021. The focus of this paper is on in-country processes that have not received much attention to date. We find that an efficient TNA process is characterized by the adoption of an inclusive multi-stakeholder process, using existing institutional structures to increase ownership, and applying a learning-by-doing approach. An effective TNA process supports the formulation of national climate change policies and strategies and importantly enables the country to leverage international climate finance. For the latter, an effective TNA should address more closely the investment criteria of the Green Climate Fund. The lessons learned are shared to better inform forthcoming TNA processes in SIDS.

A Strategy for Responding to New Market Mechanisms based on the Technology Demands of Developing Countries: A Comparison of Technology Needs Assessment (TNA), Technical Assistance (TA) of the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN), and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in Six Priority Partner Countries

Developing countries continue to seek technological and financial support from the international community to more effectively respond to climate change. Through the Paris Agreement, many countries pledged to develop and implement a voluntary ‘Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC),’ and accordingly the demand for developing and transferring climate technology in developing countries is expected to expand further. In this regard, the present study discusses policy implications associated with accomplishing a national NDC by comparing the climate technology demands of developing countries and the present status of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). For this, technology needs assessments (TNAs) and Climate Technology Center Network Technical Assistance (CTCN TA) data were used to understand the technology demands of developing countries and to determine the present status of the CDM regarding technology demands for developed countries. To this end, six countries among South Korea’s priority partner countries were selected-Vietnam, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Chile, Peru, and Mongolia. The results of this study can be used to establish a response strategy for new market mechanisms based on the technology demands of developing countries in the future, and can further provide implications for the development of domestic advanced climate technology companies.

Enhancing ambition levels in nationally determined contributions—Learning from Technology Needs Assessments

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are to develop nationally determined contributions (NDCs) every 5 years, outlining their climate targets and plans. In order to ease this task, countries may use the experiences with the Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) program. In this paper, lessons with TNAs since 2001 are described, and it is analyzed how countries, with a focus on developing countries, may use these lessons in strengthening and implementing their successive NDCs. While some developing countries have already used the results of their TNA process in their NDC development, countries could benefit from following the TNA process, its stakeholder involvement, and the multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methodology, to strengthen their NDCs. Countries face challenges in their NDC with regard to the embedding of the contribution into the national development strategy, getting from plans to implementation, and the mobilization of finance. Through the positive and negative experiences with TNAs, countries can overcome these challenges. It is argued that all countries can use the TNA or parts thereof in their NDC process. For developing countries (mainly Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States) the TNA is useful for capacity building, strategy development, and the preparation of projects for investment with international support. Emerging markets and newly‐industrialized countries can use the TNA as a participatory approach for strategy development. Developed countries generally do not need the entire TNA process, but the participatory approaches and MCDA can be used to fine‐tune modeled strategies.This article is categorized under: Energy and Climate > Economics and Policy Energy and Climate > Climate and Environment Energy and Development > Climate and Environment

The nexus between nationally determined contributions and technology needs assessments: a global analysis

ABSTRACTThe role of technology in combatting climate change through mitigation and adaptation to its inevitable impacts has been acknowledged and highlighted by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the developing world, this has received particular attention through the technology needs assessment (TNA) process. As Parties put forward their national pledges to combat climate change, the scarcity of resources makes it important to assess (i) whether national processes designed to tackle climate change are working together and (ii) whether existing national processes should be terminated with the initiation of new ones. This study presents an assessment of the existing TNA process and its linkages to the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. The conclusions stem from an assessment of the TNAs completed to date, as well as 71 NDCs from developing countries at various stages of the TNA process. The analyses show that further developing the TNAs could play a vital role in filling gaps in the existing NDCs, specifically those relating to identifying appropriate technologies, their required enabling framework conditions and preparing implementation plans for their transfer and diffusion.Key policy insightsThe full potential of the TNAs has still to be rolled out in many countries.Developing countries can maximize the potential of their TNAs by further developing them to explicitly analyse what is needed to implement existing NDCs, including by better aligning their focus, scope and up-to-dateness with the priority sectors included in the NDCs.Requests of developing countries for international assistance, through technology transfer, will be better guided by the completion of the TNA process.Policies for strengthening the NDCs will benefit from the results of completed, ongoing and future TNA processes.

Formulation of Low-Carbon City Development Roadmap: Technical Elements and Recommendations

Promoting low-carbon development (LCD) is one of the basic requirements of building new-type urbanization with Chinese characteristics. Research on the formulation of low-carbon city development roadmap (hereinafter referred to as the “Roadmap”) is a necessity for systematic control of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and the construction of low-carbon cities. Based on the actual conditions of cities as well as the regional and national development strategies, the Roadmap panoramically describes the strategic objectives, development plans, and key sectors' initiatives for the transformation of city development through planning techniques and solutions. Generally, the formulation of a low-carbon roadmap involves six steps: understanding the present situation of GHG emissions; analyzing the future emission scenarios; setting LCD targets; developing action plans for key sectors; assessing mitigation potential of low-carbon technologies/projects; and proposing measures for implementation. This paper, based on the practical experience in low-carbon city roadmap development and the needs of divisional management, establishes an analytical structure of GHG inventory for seven sectors, so as to link the key sectors for LCD, namely the seven major sectors for emissions reduction proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Moreover, this paper integrates sectorial (industrial) low-carbon technology needs assessment (TNA) into the formulation of the Roadmap. It also provides several recommendations for better incorporating the two methods into the Roadmap: firstly, to strengthen the core function of GHG inventory by enhanced accounting quality and scientific and systematic analysis of the temporal and sectorial distribution of GHG emissions so as to serve the Roadmap formulation and decision-making. Secondly, to reinforce the derivative function of GHG inventory that serves the LCD planning, assessment, and decision-making by improving the quality and continuity of GHG inventory. Thirdly, to develop the derivative function of GHG inventory by integrating the improved GHG inventory and TNA into the formulation of the Roadmap.

Overview of Bio-Digester Technology in Selected Countries of Asia

Access to technology is vital for alleviating poverty, inequality and improving the livelihood of the poor households. In this context, Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) project provides an ideal platform for participating countries to identify technologies through a participatory approach. The objective of this study is to identify such Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) and assess its long-term sectoral transformation potential to achieve socio-economic and environmental goals. The findings of this study suggest that countries like Bhutan, Laos, Sri Lanka and Vietnam have prioritized bio-digester technology as a clean energy for cooking. In the present scenario, the technology is in the early stage of the development and private sector participation is vital for technology implementation through new business models. In order to achieve complete sectoral transformation, there is a need to address barriers such as lack of private sector engagement, capacity building for the local population, standardization of design, lack of various financial mechanisms and government intervention to reduce the cost of technology for large-scale technology penetration.

Barriers to the Transfer of Low-carbon Electricity Generation Technologies in Four Latin American Countries

This article discusses the conclusions of four national Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) processes in Latin America (2011-2013), as applied to the electricity sector. The primary focus is on the financial and economic barriers identified by countries to the transfer of prioritized low-carbon energy technologies. While many electricity markets in Latin America were liberalized during the 1990s and 2000s, such market-driven reform policies were far from uniform and in reality there exist a diversity of governance frameworks for national electricity markets, exemplified here by Argentina, Cuba, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. As such, we compare the identified barriers against the key characteristics of the national electricity sectors and natural resource base, in order to evaluate the relative significance of these barriers. In doing so, we make an indicative contribution to the debate about the relationship between financial and economic barriers to technology transfer and electricity market structures, based on a new round of country-driven priorities and analysis, in support of the UNFCCC process on climate change mitigation.

Developing countries' energy needs and priorities under a sustainable development perspective: A linguistic decision support approach

Sustainable Development (SD) has been discussed extensively in the theoretical literature since the concept was adopted as an overarching goal of economic, social development and environmental protection. The relationship between SD and climate change is of particular importance to developing countries due to their development process and the particular climate challenges that many of them face. The notion is that strategies pursuing SD and climate change mitigation can be mutually reinforcing. In the frame of climate change, the transfer of low-carbon sustainable technologies could ideally provide a framework of helping developing countries to find new sustainable development paths. The aim of this paper is to present a Linguistic Decision Support Approach, based on the Linguistic Ordered Weighted Averaging (LOWA) operator, with the objective of assessing developing countries' energy service needs and priorities. In our approach, a range of energy services and criteria for the assessment were defined, related stakeholders were also involved so as to identify energy service needs and priorities that are most applicable to the country's sustainable development. In this respect, the approach followed could enhance the so far applied Technology Needs Assessments (TNA) and establish a clear understanding of the host country's overall medium to long-term energy and environmental strategy. The application of the particular approach to cross representative developing countries around the world indicated energy efficiency in industry and electricity for industry as high priority energy services.