The world has smart fridges that nag you about kale, robot vacuums that map your living room,
and AI that can write breakup songs on command. And yet, in many villages, people still walk
miles to collect unsafe water and wait days for a nurse to visit. Something about our global
innovation priorities is… off.
A growing body of research says exactly that: not enough new technology is being designed,
funded, or scaled with the developing world in mind. Instead, science and innovation spending
is heavily skewed toward problems in rich countries, luxury conveniences, and frontier
technologies that require infrastructure many communities simply don’t have.
In this article, we’ll unpack what recent studies are actually saying, why the “innovation
gap” persists, and what a more equitable tech pipeline could look like. We’ll also look at
real-world examples and experiences from people trying to build tech that works in places
where the power cuts out, data is expensive, and roads turn into rivers every rainy season.
The Study Behind the Headline
The phrase “Not enough new tech for the developing world is in progress” comes from reporting
on research examining how global science, technology, and innovation (STI) align with the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The verdict is blunt: most research and
innovation is not focused on the world’s most urgent needs like clean water, climate
resilience, hunger, or basic health care.
Parallel analyses by UN bodies and development economists show a similar pattern. Just 100
large companies funded around 40% of global R&D in 2022, and almost none of them are based
in low-income countries. Most frontier AI, biotech, and advanced digital tech is being built
in high-income economies, largely for high-income markets. Meanwhile, the least developed
countries still face stark limitations in scientific capacity, research funding, and access to
appropriate technologies.
In plainer English: we’re pouring billions into making phones fold in half while millions of
people are still waiting for a reliable way to charge a basic phone at all.
Why Innovation Skips the Developing World
Follow the money (and the markets)
The first reason is brutally simple: R&D follows profit. Firms and investors focus on
customers who can pay premium prices and on markets where they’re confident they can recoup
their investments. That usually means wealthy consumers in North America, Europe, and parts
of East Asia.
Data from the World Bank and other researchers show that poorer countries invest only a tiny
fraction of their GDP in R&D, often well under 0.5%, compared with 2–3% or more in
advanced economies. When a country isn’t spending much on research, doesn’t host big tech
companies, and has limited domestic venture capital, it naturally gets less tailored
innovation.
The result: a flood of apps that help you choose a gluten-free brunch spot, and a trickle of
tools that help a community manage a failing water system, track local disease outbreaks, or
adapt to unpredictable weather.
Infrastructure and skills gaps
Even when companies want to build technology for poorer regions, the basics can get in the
way. Many communities still struggle with:
- Unreliable electricity and frequent power cuts
- Slow or patchy mobile and internet connectivity
- Limited access to devices (shared phones, old hardware, no computers)
- Low digital literacy and limited technical training opportunities
International reports estimate that around 5.5 billion people are now online, but connectivity
is far from equal. Mobile broadband coverage is close to universal on paper, yet a large share
of the world either cannot afford it or cannot use it effectively. In many developing
countries, the “usage gap” people covered by a mobile network but not using mobile internet
is far bigger than the coverage gap itself.
Add in skill shortages, brain drain, and weaker research institutions, and you get a vicious
cycle: without infrastructure and human capital, it’s hard to do R&D; without R&D, it’s
harder to build the case for investing in infrastructure and skills.
Who gets to set the agenda?
Another subtle issue: most of the people deciding which problems to tackle investors,
senior researchers, tech executives live in rich countries. They don’t always understand
the realities of smallholder farmers, informal traders, or communities that rely on a single
fragile well.
That’s how we end up with polished “solutions” that assume 24/7 electricity, constant
connectivity, or high-end smartphones, and that quietly ignore languages spoken by tens of
millions of people. It’s not usually malice; it’s just misalignment.
The Digital Divide in 2025: Not Just About Wires
The old phrase “digital divide” might sound a bit 2005, but the problem is very 2025.
Recent statistics show:
-
Internet use is far higher in urban areas than rural ones in some data, more than 80% of
urban dwellers are connected compared with under 50% in rural regions. -
Even where networks exist, many people don’t use them because data is too expensive, they
lack skills, or they don’t see obvious value in going online. -
Gender gaps persist. In several low- and middle-income countries, women are less likely to
use mobile internet and more likely to rely on basic phones despite owning smartphones.
One study of female entrepreneurs in developing countries found that while over 90% owned
smartphones, nearly half lacked regular internet access because data was simply too costly.
For these women, digital tools could mean more customers, easier payments, and broader
markets but only if they can actually get online consistently.
Meanwhile, AI is spreading at record speed among those who are already connected and
well-resourced. UN and industry reports warn that without deliberate policy choices, AI could
widen the gap between rich and poor countries by concentrating economic gains where
infrastructure, data centers, and skilled workers are already abundant.
What Kind of Tech Is Actually Needed?
If you talk to people working on the ground in East Africa, South Asia, or Latin America,
the tech wish list looks very different from that of Silicon Valley. Instead of “more
immersive virtual meetings,” you’ll hear:
- Low-cost, low-power systems to monitor village water wells and pumps
- Simple tools for local health workers to track vaccines, pregnancies, and disease outbreaks
- Weather and crop advisory services that work over basic SMS, not just smartphone apps
- Solar-powered solutions for lighting, cold storage, and water purification
- Local-language platforms for education, financial services, and government information
Organizations working on water access, for example, have shown that even modest smartphone
apps can transform maintenance of rural wells and pipelines. When local technicians can log
problems, track repairs, and get support through a simple interface, systems fail less often
and communities spend less time and money fixing avoidable breakdowns.
In other words, the most impactful “innovation” is often not a flashy new gadget. It’s tech
that fits local realities: unreliable power, low-bandwidth networks, shared devices,
intermittent literacy, and complicated social dynamics.
Barriers to Building the Right Tech
So why isn’t more of this kind of technology in the pipeline? Beyond money and infrastructure,
several recurring problems show up in studies and real-world projects:
Short-term projects and “pilot-itis”
Development funding often favors flashy pilots over long-term maintenance. A project might
deploy sensors or apps in a handful of communities, generate a glowing case study, and then
quietly disappear when the grant runs out. Local teams are left with half-working systems and
no budget for updates or repairs.
Copy-paste solutions from other contexts
A tool that works in a middle-income city may flop in a remote rural area with different
languages, social norms, and power structures. Yet, because it’s cheaper and faster, many
projects simply localize an existing product with minimal adaptation. People understandably
stop using tech that doesn’t feel like it was built for them.
Limited voice for local innovators
There’s no shortage of smart developers and entrepreneurs in Nairobi, Dhaka, Lagos, or Lima.
What’s often missing is access to capital, mentorship, and global networks. Without those,
local innovators struggle to scale their solutions beyond small pilots or a few districts.
Research on “frugal innovation” shows that products designed to be affordable, robust, and
simple can spread quickly in developing countries and help bridge gaps in access. But to get
beyond a few success stories, they need the same things any startup needs: finance, policy
support, infrastructure, and patient investors.
How to Build Tech With, Not Just For, the Developing World
The good news: we know a lot about what works better. Across sectors, some recurring
principles keep showing up:
1. Co-design with communities
The most sustainable technologies are built with heavy input from the people who will use
them. That means involving local leaders, frontline workers, and community members from day
one, not just at the “user testing” stage when everything is already decided.
2. Design for constraints, not around them
Assume the power will go out. Assume the network will be slow. Assume the phone will be old,
shared among a family, and frequently out of data. Technologies that accept these constraints
and still deliver value offline modes, SMS interfaces, solar power, local caching
generally do better than those that pretend the constraints don’t exist.
3. Support local innovators
Funding, training, and networks matter. Studies show that when science and innovation
assistance is paired with domestic R&D investment, developing countries can grow their
own innovative capacity. That looks like supporting local universities, incubators, and
startups and letting them lead projects rather than just implementing someone else’s app.
4. Think systems, not gadgets
A water-monitoring app doesn’t help if there’s no budget or governance structure to actually
fix broken pumps. A telemedicine platform fails if medicines never arrive and nurses are
overworked. The most effective tech projects are woven into broader systems: supply chains,
training, budgeting, and accountability.
On-the-Ground Experiences: What It Looks Like in Real Life
To understand what “not enough new tech for the developing world” looks like in practice, it
helps to listen to people who live it every day. Their experiences highlight both the
frustration and the potential.
The water engineer with a smartphone and no signal
Picture a young technician, Amina, working for a small NGO in rural East Africa. Her job is
to keep dozens of wells and small pipe systems running. On paper, she has access to a modern
maintenance app that logs breakdowns, spare parts, and repair history.
In reality, her workday looks different. Many of the villages she visits have weak or
non-existent mobile data coverage. She takes photos, writes notes offline, and waits until
she gets back to a nearby town to upload anything. When the app receives an update, it
sometimes breaks on older Android phones. The international developer is in a completely
different time zone, and bug fixes can take weeks.
What helps most is not a brand-new platform, but small, context-aware tweaks: features that
work fully offline; a way to export data via Bluetooth to share with colleagues; training
materials in local languages. None of this is glamorous, but it turns a fragile tool into a
reliable one.
The farmer whose weather app speaks the wrong language
In coastal South Asia, a rice farmer named Rahim knows the monsoon is changing. Rain comes
later, arrives in intense bursts, and sometimes disappears when he needs it most. Someone in
the city tells him about a great weather app that uses satellite data and advanced models to
help farmers decide when to plant.
The problem? The app’s interface is only in English. Rahim can recognize dates and a few
icons, but crucial details about rainfall probabilities and storm warnings are buried in
text-heavy screens. He mostly relies on his own experience and the advice of neighbors.
A locally developed tool using voice prompts in his language, short graphical warnings, and
SMS alerts tied to simple choices (“plant now” vs. “wait one week”) would likely be far more
useful. It doesn’t require cutting-edge AI just thoughtful design and a deep understanding
of how farmers actually make decisions.
The entrepreneur who can’t afford to stay online
In West Africa, a young entrepreneur, Grace, runs a small clothing and accessories business.
She owns a smartphone and knows that social media could dramatically expand her customer
base. But mobile data costs are high, and she often runs out mid-month.
Some days she spends precious time hunting for free Wi-Fi at cafes or shared hubs, just to
upload product photos and respond to messages. E-commerce platforms exist, but they assume
reliable, always-on connectivity, cheap data, and customers with credit cards none of which
are guaranteed in her market.
For Grace, “innovation” might mean a low-data marketplace app optimized for intermittent
access, integrated with mobile money, and designed to cache content offline. It might also
mean policy changes that bring down data prices and protect users from harassment and fraud.
The common thread
These experiences are different, but the underlying theme is the same: the biggest missing
piece is not human ingenuity. It’s the pipeline and priority-setting that decides what gets
built, for whom, and under what assumptions. When communities, local innovators, and
low-income countries sit at the design table, the tech that emerges is often simpler,
cheaper, and far more transformative.
The studies warning that “not enough new tech for the developing world is in progress” are
not saying we need to halt frontier innovation. They’re saying we need to rebalance to
invest intentionally in technologies that make it easier to drink clean water, get decent
healthcare, learn new skills, adapt to climate change, and build livelihoods, even when the
Wi-Fi is out and the nearest data center is a continent away.
Conclusion: Rewriting the Global Innovation To-Do List
The world is not short on technology. It is short on technology that matters most to the
people who are currently furthest behind.
Studies from UN agencies, development economists, and NGOs all point in the same direction:
research and innovation spending is heavily concentrated in rich countries and in sectors
that serve already-connected, well-off users. At the same time, the digital divide persists,
with gaps by income, geography, and gender. Without a course correction, new waves of
technology from AI to advanced connectivity could deepen global inequality instead of
helping close it.
The alternative is not mysterious. It looks like:
- Investing in infrastructure, skills, and local R&D in low-income countries
- Supporting frugal, context-aware innovations designed around real constraints
- Co-designing tools and systems with communities and frontline workers
- Measuring success in terms of lives improved, not just devices shipped or valuations raised
If policymakers, donors, and companies can shift even a fraction of their innovation
attention toward these goals, the phrase “not enough new tech for the developing world” could
become outdated not because we’ve flooded villages with gadgets, but because we’ve finally
aligned our smartest tools with humanity’s most important problems.