A scientific formula for Afro-optimism

A conference in March aims to help nurture an African scientific renaissance, writes Edward Steen.

The ‘Chinindia factor’ - growing Chinese and Indian investment in Africa - has helped steer western aid in a more productive direction, according to Abdoulie Janneh, head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Speaking to European Voice last week, Janneh, a veteran development expert, said that both emerging economic giants had poured funds into neglected areas of infrastructure, such as railways in Nigeria, roads in Ethiopia and energy projects in Ghana.

"They are creating an environment that is having a real impact in Africa. I salute their engagement," he said.

Janneh was in Brussels to launch Science with Africa, a conference planned for March 2008.

Its ambition is to transform relations between the developed world and a continent which remains painfully poor and where, in the sub-Sahara, scarcely half the population has access to clean water.

"No part of the world has developed significantly without science and technology," he said. "In Africa neither has yet reached the level that is needed." Science with Africa was aimed at changing that. "It will not be ‘just another conference’ of aid experts preaching to the converted," he said.

The five-day event in Addis Ababa to promote and consolidate strategic research collaboration and investment will bring together stakeholders ranging from scientists to pharmaceutical companies and private investors, and finance ministers and parliamentarians from all over the world.

Building on Janneh’s call at the African Union summit last January for "a major science and technology capacity-building initiative", Science with Africa is intended to make up for lost time and attempt to catch up with Asia and South America, both of which experienced substantial economic and technological development in the last 20 years.

The ‘with’ in the conference title signalled a deliberate inclusion of Africans and what they actually needed and wanted, he said, and marked a deliberate change from development aid which had often been misspent or sometimes knowingly given to crooks, as in General Mobutu’s Zaire, contributing to ‘Africa’s lost decade’ of the 1980s.

"During the Cold War aid was often politically motivated," said Janneh, whose last job was directing the UN Development Programme Regional Bureau for Africa, managing activities in 45 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean.

Science with Africa follows on from the Connect Africa summit in Kigali, Rwanda, in October which brought together 500 of the world’s movers and shakers in information technology to promote partnerships and start closing the yawning gaps in Africa’s ICT infrastructure.

Science with Africa will seek to agree a new consensus on priorities and policy opinions in research and innovation, with emphasis on new partnerships, especially with the private sector:

"A lot of institutions want to do collaborative research but don’t know the landscape."

Africa has been haemorrhaging some 20,000 trained professionals every year since 1990.

Janneh is keen to include this African diaspora in his efforts. Many were interested and engaged, and wanted to help, he said. In Ghana there was already a "medical national service" scheme for doctors with rare skills to return home to help without pay for three months.

Janneh is confident the EU-Africa summit opening on 8 December in Lisbon will endorse a similarly practical and determined approach: establishing "partnership at the highest level" and "not just making deals" but rather allowing Africa to articulate the challenges it faced.

Along with transport and infrastructure, health, life sciences, agriculture, Information and Communications Technology, and water, energy is one of the main themes of the Science with Africa initiative: "We do after all have enough sun in Africa," he said.

In Janneh’s view, the continent was much better governed than it had been in the past. In his view, good governance produced an average growth rate of 5.5% and media liberalisation and pluralism were helping to stem the tide of corruption. "Democracy is really giving a voice to the people," he said. "Africa is assuming ownership of its own agenda. Afro-pessimism is over."

A conference in March aims to help nurture an African scientific renaissance, writes Edward Steen.