The last dance and parting shots

The 11th TWAS general conference came to an end today with Jacob Palis, the president of the organisation, extending a greeting from another Jacob; Zuma, the president of South Africa.

Meeting Palis and his colleagues in Cape Town yesterday, Zuma promised that if TWAS was to organise another conference in his country he would attend in person. Oh well…

It has not just been hard work. Last night, TWAS members and staff were dancing on tables in a casino where the final party of the week took place. Unfortunately, your correspondent did not attend with her camera, otherwise this post may have had more interesting images to go with it.

The conference signalled a deepening collaboration between TWAS and South Africa, which is going to set up a regional chapter of the organisation.

It may also mark the end of an era. Mohammed Hassan, TWAS executive director, is expected to retire at some point. This could be his last general conference. But then again, it might not…

Even if Hassan retires, he is unlikely to sever his ties completely with the organisation, according to sources in TWAS. Like a certain Russian president-cum-prime minister, he is likely to stay involved for some time to come. Which, in this case, isn’t a bad thing!

Linda Nordling, SciDev.Net

Good news from Cameroon

University scientists in Cameroon have had their pay cheques increased by over 40% over two years. I was told this by the vice-chancellor of the University of Buea, Vincent Titanji, during lunch today.

Amid the gloom of the tales coming out of African universities about how they are facing uncertainty as a result of the financial crisis, this comes as a ray of sunshine.

Apparently, the government of Cameroon has decided to spend part of the money it “received” as a result of two major debt write-offs on health, engineering and teacher education. How very wise!

Titanji’s university is also getting a whole new faculty for health sciences with two specialised laboratories.

The payrise has stabilised the university sector, says Titanji. People are happy in their jobs now, and the institutions work harmoniously.

It is too early to evaluate the impact of the programme. But it is reminder that there are many possible sources for funding for S&T if a government is serious about supporting it.

————–
In other news, Mohammed Hassan, executive director of TWAS, has been away from the conference today. For a good reason, we are assured. He has supposedly been to see South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma who has been awarded TWAS presidential medal.

We hope he will take a photo

Linda Nordling, SciDev.Net

School Children in Cameroon. Photo credit: Flickr / emeryjl

… or is it?

Just a note to point out an inconsistency I have encountered with regards to the last post. Speaking to one of Ezin’s officials after his talk, I was assured that the AU department for science, technology and human resources has quite enough money to carry out their duties, thank you very much!

Still, I queried two of my journalistic colleagues down here, and they confirmed that what I had heard Ezin say during his talk was what they too had heard.

(After Ezin’s talk I spoke to him about what projects were ‘less of a priority’ than the Pan African University and he mentioned teacher training as an example. Which points to there being a problem with funding…)

Linda Nordling, SciDev.Net

Science diplomacy: the case for caution

One of the frustrations of meetings at which scientists gather to discuss policy-related issues is the speed with which the requirements for evidence-based discussion they would expect in a professional context can go out of the window.

Such has been the issue over the past two days in the meeting jointly organised in London by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Royal Society on the topic “New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy“.

There has been much lively discussion on the value of international collaboration in achieving scientific goals, on the need for researchers to work together on the scientific aspects of global challenges such as climate change and food security, and on the importance of science capacity building in developing countries in order to make this possible.

But there remained little evidence at the end of the meeting on how useful it was to lump all these activities together under the umbrella term of “science diplomacy”.

More significantly, although numerous claims were made during the conference about the broader social and political value of scientific collaboration – for example, in establishing a framework for collaboration in other areas, and in particular reducing tensions between rival countries – little was produced to demonstrate whether this hypothesis is true.

If it is not, then some of the arguments made on behalf of “science diplomacy”, and in particular its value as a mechanism for exercising “soft power” in foreign policy, do not stand up to close scrutiny.

Indeed, a case can be made that where scientific projects have successfully involved substantial international collaboration, such success is often heavily dependent on a prior political commitment to cooperation, rather than a mechanism for securing cooperation where the political will is lacking.

Three messages appeared to emerge from the two days of discussion. Firstly, where the political will to collaborate does exist, a joint scientific project can be a useful expression of that will. Furthermore, it can be an enlightening experience for all those directly involved. But it is seldom a magic wand that can secure broader cooperation where none existed before.

Secondly, “science diplomacy” will only become recognised as a useful activity if it is closely defined to cover specific situations (such as the negotiation of major international scientific projects or collaborative research enterprises). As an umbrella term embracing the many ways in which science interacts with foreign policy, it loses much of its impact, and thus its value.

Finally, when it comes to promoting the use of science in developing countries, a terminology based historically on maximising self-interest – the ultimate goal of the diplomat – and on practices through which the rich have almost invariably ended up exploiting the poor, is likely to be counterproductive.

In other words, the discussion seemed to confirm that “science diplomacy” has a legitimate place in the formulation and implementation of policies for science (just as there is a time and place for exercising “soft power” in international relations).

 But the dangers of going beyond this – including the danger of distorting the integrity of science itself, and even alienating potential partners in collaborative projects, particularly in the developing world – were also clearly exposed.

The take-home message: handle with care.

David Dickson, SciDev.Net

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Science as a political tool? Don’t even think about it!

“Forget about using science to achieve political goals; it doesn’t even work.”

Christopher Whitty (Credit: LSHTM/Anne Koeber)

That was the stark message delivered by Chris Whitty (right), recently appointed head of research at the UK Department for International Development (DFID), to the two-day meeting taking place in London this week on “New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy“.

Whitty, a malaria specialist who was appointed in January (see UK’s DFID appoints research chief) and emphasised that he was speaking in a personal rather than an official capacity, delivered what he described as a “hymn of praise” for the role of science in international development.

He listed some of the “wonderful things” that science was capable of doing to help to mitigate the effects of poverty around the world, while adding that “it has been massively overlooked by those involved in international development for many years”.

But he was scornful of efforts to use scientific and technical assistance to achieve broader political goals such as increasing influence or even contributing to social stability, both of which he included among “less good reasons” to engage in science in developing countries.

“They are less good because they don’t work,” he said.

One idea he criticised was that training scientists was a valuable way of buying influence with a country’s scientific community. The historical record showed that highly trained scientists often left their countries of origin to continue their work overseas.

“Another idea is that science can promote social stability,” said Whitty. “The evidence is the reverse. Science can be a transformative influence. But transformation can lead to turbulence, which itself can lead to conflict.”

Even the idea that science should be promoted because it was an unalloyed good had its problems. “This is clearly not correct. For example, there is some good south-south collaboration on nuclear issues that does not bring joy to the rest of the world.” No names were mentioned; but no names were needed.

The reason for engaging in science in developing countries should have a single, clear, purpose, he suggested: “to transform the lives of the poor”. A simple enough message. But one that placed a large question mark over the desirability of seeking to use science for diplomatic ends, particularly in the context of relationships with the developing world.

David Dickson, SciDev.Net.

It’s not what you know, it’s what you do with it

Next stop: Tunis in 2011

There’s a famous line in Moliere’s play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme where the lead character expresses both surprise and pleasure at his discovery that he has “been speaking prose all my life, and [I] didn’t even know it!”

At the end of three days of intensive discussions, a significant proportion of the 300 or so delegates attending this week’s meeting in Dakar, Senegal, may well be returning home with the same feeling about the concept of “knowledge management”.

Some of the presentations to the 3^rd Knowledge Management Africa (KMA) meeting applied the term to the new opportunities to put science and technology to productive use that are being opened by, for example, novel communication technologies (including both the Internet and mobile telephone).

Others, however, pointed out during the meering that in areas such as health and food production, finding ways of putting medical and agricultural science to use has been a central concern of development programmes for several decade.

But despite – or perhaps because of — the continuing lack of a precise definition, the meeting ended not only with a consensus that improved knowledge management, within both the public and private sector, is vital for Africa’s future prosperity, but also agreement on steps that will hopefully help this to happen.

One of the most concrete will be setting up of a new foundation, based at least initially in South Africa, that will seek to become a hub for Africa-wide efforts to boost knowledge management, while at the same time providing support for practical activities aimed at this goal in different parts of the continent (See story here).

Importantly, the foundation will provide a mechanism through which a range of African banks will be able to explore ways in which their lending policies can be broadened to include not only conventional investments, but also those aimed at building up Africa’s scientific and technical capacities.

(To be continued)

David Dickson, SciDev.Net

A role for “honorary Africans”?

Lee Yee Cheong: Seeking recognition for "friends of Africa"

It’s relatively rare for a non-African participant to receive a warm round of spontaneous applause from an audience gathered to discuss African solutions to Africa’s problems — a key idea behind the concept of an Africa “renaissance”.

That was the response, however, to a suggestion from Malaysian Lee Yee Cheong that individuals who had lived and worked in Africa should be accepted as honorary members of the African diaspora, even if they do not have blood relations with the continent.

Lee, an engineer by training, is a familiar figure on the “science and technology for development” scene. He was co-chair of a Millennium Project task force which issued a report on the topic four years ago, and also a driving force behind the creation of the International Science, Technology and Innovation Centre for South-South Cooperation (ISTIC) which opened in Malaysia last year.

But, as he reminded his audience, he is currently acting as an adviser to the Kenyan government. He suggested that this entitled him (and others in similar situations) to consider themselves part of an international community dedicated to helping Africa solve its problems.

“Please extend the term diaspora to those who love Africa,” he said. “I suggest that you include those foreigners who have worked and lived in the continent, or generally consider themselves to be ‘friends of Africa’, not just those who were born here.”

His remarks, based on his own experiences  on the support that non-Malaysians have given his own country, went down well in the room, to judge by the warm round of applause with which they were greeted by other participants – almost entirely African.

“It’s a good point,” says Nigerian-born Patrick Ezepue, a researcher in quantitative modelling for business at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom, who is setting up an organisation through which African scientists currently based in Britain can contribute their skills to African development. “We don’t want to be parochial about this kind of thing”.

David Dickson, SciDev.Net

A voice of experience

M'Bow: "Africa must act quickly"

Few participants in the Dakar conference on knowledge management can have had more experience of the challenges facing science in Africa than Amadou-Makhtar M’Bow, a former education minister of Senegal, and director general of UNESCO from 1974 to 1987 — the first black African to head a major UN organisation.

M’Bow reminded his audience that, despite the economic challenges facing the African continent, little had happened over the past 20 years to meet them. “Africa’s share of world trade fell from 5.8 per cent in the early 1960s to 2.8 per cent in 1987,” he pointed out.

“But we are still at roughly the same level as we were in 1987,” adding that a series of brain-storming meetings held under UNESCO’s auspices 20 years ago “had the same concerns as today”.

Although now well into his 80s, M’Bow maintains much of the fiery commitment that led him on a collision course as head of UNESCO with both the United States and the United Kingdom in his promotion of a new world information order.

He acknowledged that progress in promoting science and technology on the continent has been slow. “If the capacity for scientific creativity and technology development is measured by the number of engineers, technicians and researchers, Africa remains far from a minimum threshold,” M’Bow said.

“Too often, African countries maintained a technological dependence on other countries, but also suffered from a lack of modernisation, for example in its agricultural system.”

“That is the situation of Africa today, despite the progress that has been achieved since independence,” M’Bow said. “The causes lie in the fact that Africa has not been able to draw on the enormous possibilities that are offered for its development by scientific and technological knowledge.”

Despite this, he remains optimistic. “Everything is possible if we have the will power, and are bold enough to pull together African intelligence and expertise to do what others can do.” 

Collaboration between African countries to promote science and technology was essential “for the destiny of the African people and the future of the continent”.

The solution, said M’Bow, also lay in changing attitudes towards education, and especially in training a new generation of managers “who are proud of being Africans”. It would then be up to these people “to build a new Africa capable of both resolving its own problems, and contributing solutions to the problems faced by the rest of the world”.

But speed is essential. “The African continent must act, and must act quickly, to change the course of history.”

David Dickson, SciDev.Net

Knowledge management begins at home

Knowledge Management Africa is taking place in Dakar, Senegal, on 4-7 May 2009

“Knowledge management” is not a phrase that slips easily off the tongue. Nor, for that matter, does it make attention-grabbing headlines.

There was therefore some confusion among science journalists sent to cover the opening yesterday (4 May) of the third Knowledge Management Africa (KMA) conference, currently taking place in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, about what they were being expected to write.

Some light — but not a lot — was thrown on the topic of the meeting from its title “Knowledge to Re-position Africa in the Global Economy”.

But any doubts about the importance of the meeting were dispelled in the opening session. This heard a message from the President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, in which he suggested that effective knowledge management lay at the heart of one of his pet projects, to help secure an “African renaissance”.

Wade’s idea, widely shared by all participants, is that, if properly handled, science and technology provide the key both to allowing Africa to meet the needs of its people, and to putting it in a strong position to benefit from globalisation and the growth of the global knowledge economy.

Put in these terms, the concept of “knowledge management” soon took on a more concrete form. Speakers suggested that it can cover issues that range from the provision of health services to poor communities in South Africa — where the failure to deliver key services is proving a major political embarrassment to the post-apartheid government — to global concerns ranging from climate change to coping with swine flu.

And delegates to the conference responded warmly to the call from the chief executive officer of the Development Bank of Southern Africa — one of the driving forces behind the KMA initiative — that research relevant to such issues was important, but that the time had come to put ideas into action.

All this made it easier for the science journalists present to understand what the conference is intended to achieve — even though putting this into easily accessible terms for local readers must have presented a major challenge.

But there was one area where the organisers of the conference had failed to provide their own knowledge management. A press conference was held at the end of the day entirely in French — the language spoken in Senegal — with no English translation.

A clutch of South African journalists who have come to cover the event looked somewhat unimpressed. The message was simple: on a multilingual continent, appropriate knowledge management begins at home.

David Dickson, SciDev.Net

Scientist–policymaker misunderstandings ‘hindering research’

[BAMAKO] Tense relations between scientists and policy-makers are a barrier to ensuring science achieves its potential impact on health in Africa, delegates at the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health heard.

The two groups perceive each other to have different world views and different timeframes for action — and policymakers say scientists provide overly technical, inaccessible information.

Read the full story on SciDev.Net