Bringing Africa up to speed on science

A new effort is under way to include more African scientists in international research, writes Ed Steen.

Efforts to improve the participation of African scientists in international research and development will be intensified next week (7 March) in Addis Ababa.

Some 600 scientists and policymakers from Africa, Europe and the US, will gather for a conference entitled 'Science with Africa'.

The wider ambition is to effect a complete transformation of relations between Africa and the developed world.

Africa has been starved of many of the technical and scientific advances of recent years, among the most significant being the affordable and ubiquitous telecommunications which are changing the lives of millions of people around the world.

"There is a strong correlation between the size of the investments a nation makes in science and technology...and the standard of living and other measures of economic well-being," Abdoulie Janneh, head of the UN's Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca), and a UN under-secretary-general, said last week.

The event, which Janneh promised would "not be 'just another conference' of aid experts preaching to the converted", is being co-organised by Uneca and the African Union (AU), with financial backing from Switzerland, Canada, Microsoft (a major supporter of vaccine research), Nokia and Siemens.

The main subjects being discussed will be energy, transport and infrastructure, health, life sciences, agriculture, ICT, water, climate change, and innovation.

One of the leading scientists scheduled to participate is Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub of Imperial College, London, who is working extensively in Ethiopia and with European Action on Global Life Sciences (Eagles), which is committed to enhancing collaboration between European researchers and researchers in the developing world to fight hunger and disease.

A 'knowledge-brokering' partnership funded by the Swiss and including Uneca, Brainstore, and the multilateral Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), will also be launched at the conference.

Janneh's message about the need to invest in science and technology has in recent years percolated through Africa and there has been widespread interest in the conference. It follows on from the AU's choosing 'Science, Technology, and Scientific Research for Development' as the theme of its 2007 summit.

There is some evidence that the fine words are gradually turning into policy decisions.

According to Uneca figures to be released during the conference, several African nations are pioneering a new approach. Rwanda, notably - a front-runner in IT - has boosted its expenditure on science to 1.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), and is aiming for 3% within the next five years. (The Connect Africa Summit in Kigali last October brought together 500 of the world's leading actors in information technology.)

In South Africa research and development funding is set to grow to 1% of GDP by 2009. In Nigeria Û3.4 billion is being set aside for a planned national science foundation. Zambia will offer postgraduate fellowships to train some 300 science and engineering students in its country thanks to a $30 million (Û20.2m) loan from the African Development Bank.

Substantial help for such efforts, as Janneh noted in an interview with European Voice last year, is coming from China and India, but also Korea and Brazil, surging economies sometimes collectively referred to as 'Chinindia'.

None is as insistent as EU countries, or the EU itself, on attaching strings, such as respect for democracy and human rights, to their investments, and EU member states are keenly aware of their waning influence in the face of Chinese-built airports and railways; the Science with Africa initiative was formally launched at the end of 2007 in the European Parliament. "We need no less than a scientific revolution in Africa," Janneh told the meeting.

A new effort is under way to include more African scientists in international research, writes Ed Steen.