A review of pan-African science programmes has culminated in a strategy focusing on infrastructure development, training engineers and helping locals set up viable businesses.
The Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024 will replace the Consolidated Plan of Action adopted by the continent’s science ministers in 2005.
The new strategy was meant to be review of the CPA. But Calestous Juma, professor of science and development at Harvard University in the US, says the changes were so fundamental that a new strategy was developed.
“The CPA focused on R&D and fund-raising, but this one looks at how we can leverage knowledge to solve Africa’s problems,” says Juma, who also chairs the high-level panel appointed by the African Union to review the CPA.
The new strategy will focus on building the skills Africa needs to maintain infrastructure, says Aggrey Ambali, head of policy alignment at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), an implementing agency of the African Union.
“Africa is talking about investing heavily in infrastructure, but the question is who is doing this and where is the material coming from. Africa needs the skills to design, execute and maintain infrastructure projects,” Ambali says.
The strategy will also try to make African universities more research-intensive and build partnerships with industry to help commercialise research results and help researchers set up their own companies.
Ambali says African governments contributed to the drafting of the strategy. It will now be reviewed by the African Ministerial Congress on Science and Technology bureau in August, before being sent to heads of state for approval in January.