How science and technology can help solve continent’s economic problems

The role of science, technology and engineering in solving Africa’s most challenging economic problems — from telecommunications to agriculture to infectious diseases — is no longer in question.

However, some leading international organisations undermine the role of innovation in development.

The time has come for the scientific community to advance a new generation of international organisations that can help foster technological co-operation for Africa’s economic transformation.

Worldwide, there are growing concerns about the accessibility and production of food. Sustainable agriculture in Africa cannot be pursued without modern technologies.

Africa has a long history of exporting resources and importing food, despite the potential to meet its own food demands, reduce poverty, and drive economic growth.

Unfortunately, major international agencies have persistently opposed expanding biotechnology to regions most in need.

The 1992 Earth Summit created the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to promote the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity as well as foster equitable sharing of the benefits of biotechnology.

Yet for two decades this treaty has curtailed the use of genetically-modified organisms in agriculture, even though the greatest threats to biological diversity are deforestation and invasive species.

This is mainly because only eight of the 196 national focal points for the CBD, which are located in environmental ministries, are not hostile to biotechnology.

The role of the scientific community at these CBD meetings is often limited to negotiating texts that have been drafted by government officials and international civil servants with the intent of smothering agricultural biotechnology.

For Africa, this has been a major distraction from addressing the threat of low agricultural productivity, a problem that innovative science could address and put an African agricultural revolution within reach.

The international agency for supporting science, Unesco, has played only a nominal role in advancing scientific enterprise.

At most, it has convened conferences whose decisions are barely implemented.

The recent decision by the United States to withhold financial support from Unesco over the admission of Palestine to that organisation will only weaken what was already a struggling function.

The global scientific community must foster co-operation through new intergovernmental organisations and treaties that focus on innovation to improve human welfare.

There is a precedent for such action. In 1908, despite opposition from the natural ice industry, scientists and engineers worked to advance modern refrigeration by creating the International Institute for Refrigeration (IIR).