Building STI Capacity in African Middle-Income Countries

1
Building STI Capacity in African Middle-Income
Countries

• Lessons from RISE and other initiatives

2
Building STI Capacity in African Middle-Income
Countries

• Problems and challenges
• STI capacity-building needs of African
  Middle-Income Countries (MICs)
• African Regional Initiative in Science and
  Education (RISE)
• Other initiatives
• Conclusions

3
Problems and challengesProduction of frontier
knowledge
African contributions to world output of
scientific publications
Average 2005-2006
Source TWAS, January 2007
4
Production of frontier knowledge South-South
Disparities
Top 12 of the South World publication shares
Average 2005-2006
Source TWAS, January 2007
5
Production of frontier knowledge Disparities
within Africa
African countries contributing 0.02 of world
share of ISI-listed SE papers
Average 2005-2006
Source TWAS, January 2007
MICs
6
Technological innovation potential
7
Capacity Building Needs

• Need to reform and strengthen research
  universities in African MICs
• Only 3 African universities (all in South Africa)
  are listed among top 500 universities in the
  world
• Each country must have at least one world-class
  university
• to set national standards for quality education
  and research
• to attract and train talent
• to reduce brain drain

8
Capacity Building Needs

• Need to build research capacity and centres of
  excellence within universities
• to train and retain new generation of professors
  and problem-solving research scientists
• to link universities to production sectors

9
Capacity Building Needs

• Need to establish and support national science
  foundations
• to provide merit-based competitive grants to best
  STI problem-solving projects
• ExampleNRF of South Africa

10
Capacity Building Needs

• Need to establish (within or adjacent to research
  universities) Technology Innovation Centres
• to develop innovative, efficient, simple and
  affordable technologies for basic human needs
• Safe drinking water, renewable energies

11
Capacity Building Needs

• Need to establish and strengthen merit-based
  organizations (e.g. science academies)
• to provide independent, evidence-based and
  authoritative advice on policy matters and on
  critical science-based development issues

12
RISE

• Joint venture between Science Initiative Group
  (SIG) and Carnegie Corporation
• Aim Training a new generation of PhD-level
  scientists and engineers in Africa through
  university-based research and training networks
  in selected areas

13
RISE

• Three competitively selected reresearch and
  training networks, each comprising universities
  in at least three different African countries

14
RISE

• Priority areas
• Material science
• Chemistry
• ICTs, instrumentation and software engineering
• Renewable energies
• Water resources

15
RISE

• Each network will receive US800,000 over 2 1/2
  years follow-up funding likely
• Selection procedure of three networks will be
  completed in July 2008

16
Other initiatives

• Supporting networks of excellence in thematic
  areas critical to sustainable well-being in
  Africa
• NEPAD Biosciences Network (funded by Canada)
• NEPAD Water Network (funded by France)

17
Other initiatives

• Providing postgraduate fellowships to students in
  African MICs to study in other countries
• in Africa (AAU, AU)
• in Brazil, China, India and Mexico (TWAS)
• in Northern countries (sandwich-type courses)

18
Other initiatives

• Providing competitive and merit-based grants to
  young scientists and research groups
• Applied sciences (IFS)
• Basic sciences (TWAS)
• Both supported by Sida/SAREC, Sweden

19
Other initiatives

• Supporting visits of internationally renowned
  scientists to institutions in African MICs
• UNESCO-ICSU-TWAS-UNU joint programme
• Global Science Corps programme initiated by SIG

20
Countries withmerit-based science academies
21
African merit-based science academies
Green Existing academies Green Existing academies
Cameroon Senegal
Egypt Sudan
Ghana South Africa
Kenya Tanzania
Madagascar Uganda
Morocco Zambia
Mozambique Zimbabwe
Nigeria
AAS (regional academy) AAS (regional academy)
Red Being founded Red Being founded
Botswana Rwanda
Mauritius Tunisia
22
NASACs statements

• Joint statement by academies of G8 countries and
  NASAC toG8 summit in Scotlandin June 2005
• NASAC statement to AU summit in Addis Ababa,
  Ethiopia, in January 2007
• NASAC statement to G8 summit in Germany in June
  2007
• Forthcoming NASAC statement to G8 summit in
  Japan in June 2008

23
NASACs presence at G8 Summits
24
Conclusions

• RISE is a promising model for building STI
  capacity within universities in Africa
• RISE should be expanded to support more networks
  in African MICs

25
Conclusions

• More coordination between various STI strategies
  and programmes supporting capacity-building in
  African MICs is needed
• to reduce duplications
• to enhance collaboration and synergies

26
Conclusions

• Multilateral development banks (MDBs) should
  support and encourage African MICs
• to invest in implementation of STI-capacity-buildi
  ng plans responding to the needs outlined before

27
Thank you