Isoun says although science and technology has contributed to some of Africa's global regional and local problems, there was no running away from the imperative of science and technology.

"These negative effects of science and technology are due partly to the fact that our science and technology agenda has often been ad hoc, and provincial -- more like 'fire-fighting' -- or it has been non-existent.

A new science and technology agenda for Africa must be comprehensive geographically as well as integrated sectorally with sustainability objectives introduced to maximize the benefits of science and technology, and avoid introducing further economic, social and environmental problems for future generations", Isoun stated.

He said Africa's adoption of science and technology in recent times, has been constrained by the fact that science has been practiced and implemented by a select club. He added that even in Europe and America, S&T is the preserve of five per cent or less of their people -- while the others were users.

"Africa has been almost entirely a consumer of the products of science and technology rather than a participant in creating knowledge, services and products. Africa's leaders have been constrained by their pre-occupation with the management of security, defence, and poverty.

There appears to be a broad acceptance of the insidious though false belief that we are handicapped, and without the capacity to solve our own development problems.

While Indians who studied at home and outside, have been a major contributor to the San Francisco and Bangalore Silicon valleys, our governments cannot find a way to get the African students who studied alongside the Indians to cutting edge capacity to do the same for us", the minister lamented.

Isoun stated that there has been some acquisition of science and technology for solving the problems of Africa through the establishment of educational and other R&D institutions, but these successes have been limited in effectiveness and sustainability.

"During the colonial period, there were some secondary schools and universities that produced African graduates who provided leadership in their fields of endeavour (Okrika Grammar School, Port Harcourt, Kings College, Lagos; the University of lbadan and Makerere University, for example, produced small numbers of highly selected well-trained graduates, mainly in the arts and social sciences).

With independence and recognition of the need for manpower in hard sciences, medicine and technology, most countries expanded educational opportunities at the tertiary level", he said.

He said Congo Brazzaville became independent when it had only four graduates -- 40 years ago and other countries gained independence with just over one thousand graduates.

At the moment, he said Nigeria has 40 universities, and over 40 polytechnics. He added that the number of graduates is now impressive but their education doesn't give the required skills and capacity to solve the problems of development.

He said at the University of Ibadan and Okrika Grammar school mentioned earlier, for example, there were now ten times as many students enrolled as there were 40 years ago, but that the standard had fallen to unacceptable levels.

"Yet, poor quality secondary and first degree African graduates, are being exported; Nigerians, like Asians, fill the graduate schools in the USA and subsequently make contributions at the highest levels of academia and industry while the majority of American nationals leave universities after their first degrees, to join the workforce to make money as soon as possible", the minister stated.

He said like the colonial universities, some colonial research institutes also operated at high levels of research output and competence, and contributed significantly to R&D. ICDPE, an African' research institute, he said, has had sustainability problems, but has been an important landmark.

"In the past 40 years, most of the national institutions have lost excellence and output, and now function at unacceptable levels. At the same time, some international institutes sited in Africa (e.g. ILRAD, IITA) have continued to do well, but they employ their own people and spend their own money -- providing no less than ten times the level of funding of African national research institute", he explained.

The minister stressed that the research and development exposure given to Africans in all of these institutions hasn't spilled over for the most part adding: "It hasn't ensured the existence of a sustainable critical mass of research scientists or research managers that is needed to serve the scientific community in Africa. The few experts that were trained were not replicated -- expertise in many fields (taxonomy and forestry for example) is as endangered as our biodiversity and ecosystems!"

He said senior scientists, policy makers and managers have formed the membership of scientific academies across the African continent, but there are still only ten Academies of science in Africa's 55 countries, and the pan-African African Academy of Sciences (AAS) has been in existence for only ten years.

He said these academies have for the most part, had little influence on government policy and academic productivity, due to a large extent to a lack of adequate support from governments and the private sector.

"The objective of Africa's agenda for science and technology is to be designed to ensure economic, social and environmental sustainability. It is to enable Africa to use science and technology for capacity building, to improve economic production, and thus improve the quality of life of its people -- today and tomorrow", Isoun stated.

He said countries of Africa have a diversity of cultures tempered by different modern histories, and a diversity of physical/ecological characteristics. He added: "They have desperately poor rural and urban populations lacking in skills, in organised lives and in security for their futures; most have little to offer and less to lose.

How do we channel the energy, oppose the chaos and anger, and get individuals to pursue individual visions and also collective goals and how do we focus their energy into implementing the science agenda for development.

A science agenda for Africa must focus on bringing the means for participation in productive self-employment to the greatest number of our people in the shortest possible time".

He stressed that the science agenda must include elements that would empower Africa to use the tools at the global frontiers of science and technology to address the complex problems of integrated sustainable development.

"We must invest in the tool of information technology, biotechnology, nuclear physics, and space science, and get them to serve as the foundation for the strong research and development (R&D) programmes which will enable the development of essential industries and a thriving small to medium sized enterprise (SME) sector", he added.

He said the technologies of ICT would be the entry point for many African countries to putting a science agenda into action. He added that ICT technologies have the potential to enhance the ability of even the most disadvantaged countries and individuals of all levels of literacy to access and utilize information and knowledge for self-development so that they can benefit from the world's knowledge, and also contribute to it.

According to him, another likely common entry point for putting a science agenda into action is biotechnology. He said biotechnology provides technological methods for enhancing African history and endowment for improving and sustaining bioresources, including indigenous plants used for medicinal purposes, for food and for other products of economy and social value.

Isoun said space science in a science agenda for Africa was anchored on two areas including communication (satellite, VSAT, wireless) systems and remote sensing and earth observation.

"Information from remote sensing provides a means to access reliable data on forest cover, oceans and other natural resources, and on land use dynamics, to serve as the basis for planning for exploitation and management of those resources in sustainable ways", he said.

Copyright � 2002 This Day. All rights reserved.

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