MPs get close to scientists in Uganda

Five scientists will shadow five legislators in a new pairing scheme being tried out by the Uganda National Academy of Science.

Starting in September, the five scientists will spend a week at the Ugandan Parliament where they will shadow a corresponding MP and meet with the parliamentary researcher who deals with scientific issues.

The scientists will also sit in on science and technology committee meetings, chaired by Joseph Kif’omusana Mugambe, a rural MP with a strong interest in agriculture, and visit constituencies with their MPs.

In turn, the five MPs will visit the scientists at their respective institutes such as the Community Wireless Research Centre at Makerere University and the Joint Clinical Research Centre and Infectious Disease Institute at Mulago Hospital in Kampala.

‘This is a bid to speed up understanding between two influential types of people, whose work has a huge bearing on the livelihoods of their people,” says Paul Nampala, executive secretary of the Uganda National Academy of Science.

‘Scientists can expose MPs to current trends in genetic modification, climate change, biotechnology and intellectual property,” says Nampala. Similarly, he says: ‘We hope scientists will learn to appreciate policy and law-making processes with which they are sometimes impatient.”

The five scientists are being selected from a list of more than 40 who applied, says Zaam Ssali, programme officer at the academy.

The five MPs participating in the scheme will come from the Ugandan Parliament’s science and technology committee, according to Joanna Sprackett from the United Kingdom Royal Society, which is helping to organise the scheme.

The Ugandan scheme is based on a similar scheme that has been run by the Royal Society and the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (Post) since 2001.

Chandrika Nath, Post physical science adviser, said: ‘Activities may be expanded to include fellowships so African scientists could spend three to six months preparing briefings on science and technology for legislators and helping committees identify upcoming issues”.

The programme might be rolled out to other African parliaments if it appears to have an impact.

Links to participating organisations available on the news section of the sub-Saharan Africa gateway at www.scidev.net