For generations, African women have had the slow and tedious task of shelling groundnuts by hand. The crop, a mainstay of rural commerce and diet in many countries, is hard to shell and commercial shellers are expensive, difficult to operate and unreliable.
Several years ago, however, villagers in Mali developed a hand-operated sheller. Made of concrete, wood and scrap metal, it costs the equivalent of $10. It can be run by a single person and meet the needs of a village of 2 000. With any luck, each machine will shell groundnuts for about 25 years before it needs replacing.
Rugged, effective and perfectly suited to the demands of its operators, the sheller is a prime example of people across Africa innovating and adapting technologies to meet their needs.
Overall, however, Africa is lagging in the global science and technology race. Sub-Saharan Africa contributes about 2,3% of world gross domestic product, but is responsible for only 0,4% of global expenditure in research and development (R&D). With 13,4% of the world’s population, the continent is home to only 1,1% of the world’s scientific researchers. It has about one scientist or engineer per 10 000 people, compared with 20 to 50 in industrial nations — and the gap is growing.
Nepad promotes science and technology
Expanding science and technology capacity features prominently in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the continental blueprint for economic and political advancement.
In 2005, the African Union and the Nepad secretariat launched the Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action, intended to develop an African system of research and technological innovation in agriculture, the environment, infrastructure, industry and education. It envisions a science and technology sector built around 12 research ”clusters”, each with a different specialty, ranging from biotechnology and developing Africa’s indigenous knowledge to adopting new information technologies.
However, African leaders did not reach a consensus on how to finance the plan, which the AU initially estimated would cost $158-million over five years.
The need is great. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), for example, almost 92% of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa and 48% of those in urban areas do not have modern energy services. For years, development planners have touted the advantages of solar technology as an alternative energy source, but progress in adopting it remains slow.
Creating the scientific and technology base to meet Africa’s many development challenges, however, faces formidable obstacles. These include a steady decline in funding for higher education and R&D, the ”brain drain” overseas of skilled personnel and a shortage of women in science. Also, links between industry and science and technology institutions are weak. As a result, research findings are often not used by local industries, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises.
Policies hinder progress
In many countries, national policies to promote science and technology are outdated, notes Abdoulaye Janneh, executive secretary of the Addis Ababa-based UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). The quality of science and engineering education is also declining, in part due to a lack of money and state-of-the-art labs and technology centres.
Nearly 30 years ago, in 1980, African leaders’ Lagos Plan of Action called for countries to allocate at least 1% of gross domestic product to R&D to spur the continent’s development. But after all this time, ”many of our countries devote considerably lower funding” to that end, notes Janneh.
Flawed donor policies contributed to the problem. In the 1980s, most African countries were forced to adopt structural adjustment programmes that reduced school budgets. When donor agencies recognised the need to renew funding for education, they focused on primary education, arguing that it benefited society as a whole, while higher education produced returns only for individual graduates.
As a result, the World Bank later acknowledged, ”the international development community encouraged African governments’ relative neglect of higher education”. Although the number of African universities grew from 13 in 1960 to 300 by 2002, most are poorly staffed and equipped and their research output is among the lowest in the world.
Surmountable challenges
Sound policies, political commitment and increased investment, however, could allow African countries to leap forward to modern technologies. According to Unesco, relatively small additional investments in countries such as South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zimbabwe, which already have a science and technology base, could establish world-class facilities to advance the region as a whole.
With many African economies posting strong growth, some countries are making major investments in their educational and technology sectors, including newly democratic Nigeria. In 2003, it launched a satellite to monitor the environment. The following year the government asked Unesco to help it analyse government policies and spending in the sector and review the curricula and capacity of the country’s 75 research institutes, 55 universities and 44 polytechnics.
In 2006, the country approved a $5-billion endowment fund for science and technology development, drawn mostly from oil export revenues. Egypt and South Africa have also attained significant success, notes Unesco, with South Africa investing more than $3,1-billion in 2002 in aeronautics, nuclear engineering, chemistry, metallurgy and agricultural research, while Egypt specialises in chemistry and engineering
The continent, says the ECA’s Janneh, cannot afford to waste more time. It must train and deploy large numbers of scientists, engineers and technicians and establish strong links between industry, academia and government to ensure that today’s innovations become the building blocks for tomorrow’s economic and social development.
Reprinted from UN Africa Renewal