hammamet, tunisia

Africa-wide investment in biotechnology could be the continent's route to prosperity, says Thomas Odhiambo, founder and outgoing president of the African Academy of Sciences.

Addressing the academy's fifth general conference in Hammamet, Tunisia, this week, after 13 years at the head of the organization, Odhiambo said that African scientists and entrepreneurs need to find “niche areas” where their investments have a stronger chance of succeeding — such as the commercialization of genetic resources.

Odhiambo said that, while many countries struggle to find products and markets for their nascent biotechnology industries, Africa has a genuine competitive advantage, given that it owns the world's largest stock of plants with known medicinal properties.

He added that scientists and policymakers in Africa need to modify their approach to biotechnology, from seeing it as primarily a source for the continent's future food needs to building a major knowledge industry. Africa's transformation from a recipient of development aid to a major competitor in world markets relies on such a change, said Odhiambo.

The outgoing president's comments are expected to form the basis of one of the key recommendations from the Africa region for the World Conference on Science in Budapest. The Tunisian conference's recommendations for the Budapest meeting, known as the ‘Tunis Declaration’, are expected to be finalized next week.

Odhiambo's suggestions indicate a more proactive response from leading African scientists to bioprospecting by overseas multinationals. Until now, the region's leading scientists had called for changes to global intellectual property legislation as the main route to protecting indigenous knowledge.

His comments were broadly echoed by Ali Mazrui, professor emeritus of African studies at Cornell University, New York. But Mazrui warned the academy's fellows not to repeat past mistakes when attempting to embrace new technologies.

The poor state of research and higher education in Africa, Mazrui contended, had come about partly because the architects of these institutions had modelled them mostly on what they saw in Western Europe, taking little account of different linguistic and cultural environments. “An African renaissance somehow needs a ‘reindigenizing’ component,” Mazrui told the conference.

The academy's new president is Mohammad Hassan, a mathematician and executive director of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Hassan says that one of his first tasks as president will be to persuade African governments to make more use of their senior scientists, for example through advisory committees in the areas of water management, agriculture and drought — the continent's three most pressing problems.

Another priority, says Hassan, will be to encourage centres of research excellence in Africa to help build up similar centres in neighbouring countries by passing on advice and engaging in collaborative projects.

Full report: http://helix.nature.com/wcs/a26.html