Conference gives boost to African science
2 July 1999
[BUDAPEST] Research ministers from 50 African states are planning to meet in Cairo next January under the auspices of the Organization of African States to discuss drawing a protocol for scientific collaboration across the African continent.
Such a protocol, which it is hoped will eventually be signed by heads of states, could represent one of the more concrete follow-up activities to make use of the guidelines for promoting science in the interests of development agreed at the World Conference on Science.
The ideas enshrined in the declaration agreed at the end of the Budapest meeting are likely to provide the "backbone" to such an agreement, says Henri Hogbe Nlend, a mathematician who is minister for science and technology in Cameroon, and will chair the Cairo meeting.
He announced the Cairo meeting - which he describes as an "African projection" of the conclusions of the World Conference - during the final plenary session of the conference on Thursday afternoon.
Nlend leaves Budapest describing the conference as having been "very successful", partly because many of the ideas that African delegations had been keen to promote - such that of science being "part of the common heritage of mankind" - have been formally recognised in the conference conclusions.
Like others, he would have liked to see additional points included in the final declarations, such as explicit support for the need to increased funding for science. He points out, for example, that the last such meeting - held in Vienna in 1979 -endorsed a target of spending one per cent of gross national product on research.
"Having a figure like that is important, as it creates a target by which we can measure our own efforts," he says. "You can then tell governments that the money they allocate to science is too small in comparison to what other countries are spending."
But Nlend says that he is pleased that the final declaration acknowledges the need for new funding mechanisms at both national and regional levels. "There is a very strong appeal to increase money for science and technology" he says, pointing out that "and new mechanism that is launched does not have to be a global fund".
Nlend says he is also pleased that the final declaration makes a direct reference to the possibility of establishing a formal link between reducing the debt burden of developing countries and using the money freed up in this way to finance science and technology.
This idea, which was endorsed at a meeting of African states on Monday. "The process of debt reduction could lead to an agreement between the industrialized nations and the developing nations to raise overall levels of investment in research."
Nlend says that he is also pleased the responsibility for follow-up activities has been broadened, allowing regional organizations (such as the OAU) to take up the challenge. The original version of the Framework document had said that follow-up activities should be left to Unesco and ICSU. However the final version adopted yesterday says that
He is less happy with those parts of the declaration that deal with intellectual property rights, claiming that these are "not strong enough", and also feels that it skirts around issues raised by the privatization of research, for example in health provision.
"The problem here is that such fields are more and more controlled by multinational corporations," says Nlend. "Delegates here have spoken about the dangers of this, and the issue has been referred to in the final documents, but the wording is not strong enough, particularly as the issue is likely to be one of the key issues in the 21st century."
The language, he says, reflects the fact that the document has tried to please everyone. "You have to keep everyone happy; it's a bit like a shopping bazaar, which has something for everyone, but with no clear focus on the most important things."
Globally, however, he says that most African states are happy with the outcome of the conference, and particularly the way in which "it has given us an opportunity to relaunch inter-African cooperation in science."
Indeed, Nlend points out that the meeting of African science ministers that was held in Budapest during the course of the World Conference represented the largest such meeting since the mid-1970s. "We think that the spirit of a continental cooperation in science is now very important," he says Nlend.
This means finding ways by which the wealthier African countries, such as South Africa or some of the Mediterranean states, can cooperate with poorer ones. "We should support not only cooperation between industrialized countries and developing nations, but also between countries in Africa itself," says Nlend. "Such inter-African cooperaiton is important, particularly as it gives you an opportunity to know what your neighbours are doing."
DAVID DICKSON
Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1999 Registered No. 785998 England.