Peru suffers from serious weaknesses in this area and should not delay quantitative and qualitative efforts to strengthen the entire chain of education and training from primary school to postgraduate studies, and, more specifically, the development of knowledge and skills in science, mathematics and technology. The supply problems are compounded by problems of demand. It also makes them unwilling to take the risks associated with innovation. This implies wide-ranging efforts to develop training programmes and incentives to encourage the private sector to buy into them. Given the limitations on resources and capacity, the programmes should be circumscribed and focus on areas in which Peru has competitive advantages owing to its natural resources (e.g. biotechnologies for the preservation and sustainable exploitation of biodiversity, cleaner mining exploitation) or can address social needs (e.g. in health, water remediation and environment).