Basic needs are defined as those minimal requirements needed for sustaining life for all people. They encompass adequate nutrition, health services, water, and sanitary facilities. They also imply access to elementary education and information that will enable individuals and communities to participate in productive activities and use rationally the basic goods and services available. Technology strategies, approaches and policies, rather than specific technologies, and a pragmatic and pluralistic approach rather than a doctrinaire stance need to be given priority.
The rapidly evolving global order has affected the fundamental nature of the problem of poverty and, to a great extent, the possibility of realizing sustainable human development. The concern with technology transfer has now been superseded by a preoccupation with technology capacity-building. Moreover, the trend towards decentralization and democracy is widening and deepening the participation of the poor in the solution of their own problems, and is thus creating a better climate for linking the satisfaction of basic needs with human rights.
The fundamental objective of the mobilization of science and technology to meet basic needs should be to create conditions that increase the ability of the poor to gain access to, comprehend and use creatively knowledge and technology in order to satisfy their basic needs.
The role of the United Nations in the implementation of basic needs is considered crucial, especially with regard to sensitizing the scientific and technological community, as well as policy and decision-makers, to the issue of the contribution of science and technology for the satisfaction of basic needs.