ABSTRACT
Experience in Mexico emphasizes that a technological project, with a well-defined engineering background, institutes - deliberately or not - a process of regional transformation. The Systems Analysis in Arid Zones (ASZA) project is intended to foster the interaction between science and technology and regional planning in arid zones. The ASZA project is tentatively organized into four work areas. These are Technological Innovation, Resource Evaluation and Sustainability, Technology Assessment and Development and Methods and Communications. The creation of the new regional research organization will be complex, since it brings together diverse experiences, perspectives and values. The construction of institutions which create a healthy interface between government and public policy and science and technology is a desperately-needed undertaking in Mexican arid land development, as well as in many other countries. Traditional evaluations of technologies, particularly those based on cost-benefit analysis, are limited in their usefulness.
