Research collaboration: African protocol would put conference principles into practice. Credit: BETTY PRESS/PANOS PICTURES

Research ministers from 50 African states are planning to meet in Cairo next January under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to discuss drawing up a protocol for scientific collaboration across the continent.

Such a protocol, which it is hoped will be signed by heads of state, 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 Budapest meeting are likely to provide the “backbone” to such an agreement, says Henri Hogbe Nlend, minister for science and technology in Cameroon. Nlend, who will chair the Cairo meeting, describes it as an “African projection” of the conclusions of the world conference.

Nlend describes the conference as having been successful, partly because many of the ideas that African delegations had been keen to promote — such as that of science being “part of the common heritage of mankind” — were recognized in the conclusions.

Like others, he would have liked to have seen additional points included in the final declarations, such as explicit support for the need to increase funding for science. He points out that the last such meeting, in Vienna in 1979, endorsed a target of spending one per cent of gross national product on research.

“A figure like that creates a target by which we can measure our 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 he is pleased that the final declaration acknowledges the need for new funding mechanisms at national and regional levels. “There is a strong appeal to increase money for science and technology” he says. “Any new mechanism that is launched does not have to be a global fund.”

Nlend says he is also pleased that the responsibility for follow-up activities has been broadened, allowing regional organizations (such as the OAU) to take up the challenge. He is less happy with those parts of the declaration that deal with intellectual property rights. He feels that the declaration skirts around issues raised by the privatization of research, for example in health provision.

“Such fields are more and more controlled by multinational corporations,” says Nlend. “Delegates 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.”

Full text: http://helix.nature.com/wcs/1news/02-1c.html