African faculties agree to link hands
11 March 1999
[LONDON] Science faculties from universities in six countries in East and Southern Africa have agreed to form a network to help develop research and higher education in poorer parts of the continent.
The network will comprise initially universities in Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Swaziland, which has one of the largest number of researchers per million population in Africa. More universities will be invited to join if the idea proves a success.
The idea was proposed by Mayunga Nkunya, dean of the faculty of science at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It was announced at a conference on basic sciences for development in eastern and southern Africa last week, which was held in Arusha, Tanzania.
Nkunya says that many scientists see little point in carrying out research while their countries remain mired in poverty, military conflict and political instability. "They have lost hope, " he says. "They have little direction, and many have just given up."
The aim behind the network, he says, is to provide technical and administrative help as well as mentoring to faculty and students in universities, which are poorly served by weak or non-existent public sector organizations.
The Arusha conference brought together scientists, science administrators, and a small number of politicians from 13 English speaking African countries.
The aim was to promote the idea that investment in basic research and postgraduate education is key to development - even for very poor countries - and to emphasize this message at Unesco's forthcoming World Conference on Science in Budapest later this year through the conference communiqué.
The issue of the relative importance of basic research to development is, however, controversial. In some ways it is emerging as an important focus for disagreement in the run up to the Unesco meeting. Many countries are keen for the conference to break new ground, for example, by discussing a possible role for indigenous knowledge in research policies in developing countries.
India, for example, has signalled its intention to raise what it calls indigenous and civilizational knowledge systems as a key conference theme (see Nature 4 February 1999). Future applications of indigenous knowledge will also be the main focus of an international conference next month in Tunisia organized by the African Academy of Sciences.
On the other hand, however, a conference in Beirut this week of Arab science policymakers is likely to mirror the Arusha communiqué and endorse the centrality of modern research and development to science policies in developing countries.
The Arusha conference was funded jointly by the Third World Academy of Sciences, Unesco, and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). SIDA is one of few government aid agencies that fund basic research. The message that poor countries cannot do without basic research and higher education was spelt out by Sten Rylander, Sweden's ambassador to Tanzania, in his opening statement to the conference.
This was also echoed by C. N. R Rao, president-elect of the Third World Academy of Sciences, who is also president of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore, India. Rao describes basic research as "absolutely essential" for the development of a poor country.
Rao says that while he is not against traditional knowledge, he believes that development will depend more on a mastery of the techniques and results of modern science, rather than traditional knowledge systems.
Modern science, Rao believes, is key to eradicating poverty, illiteracy, and other social injustices. And, he believes that mastery of science will also bring much needed self-confidence to individuals in developing countries from the international recognition that flows if they are leaders in their fields.
EHSAN MASOOD
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Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1999 Registered No. 785998 England.