Investing in research infrastructure will help African countries to leverage more donor funding, according to Gerald Keusch, a board member of the Council on Health Research for Development.
Investing in research infrastructure will help African countries to leverage more donor funding, according to Gerald Keusch, a board member of the Council on Health Research for Development.
Keusch, a former associate director for international research at the Fogarty International Center in the US, says countries would attract more donor funding if they increase their spend on innovative or novel research.
“You don’t have to be, in relative terms, a rich country to make an investment,” he told Research Africa after the launch of COHRED Africa in Gaborone, Botswana, on 6 November.
He cited Tanzania as an example of a poorer African nation that has made noticeable returns from its investments.
Up to 19.2 and 58.6 per cent of Tanzania’s research spend is used for experimental and applied research, respectively, according to the African Innovation Outlook 2010.
It is one of the few African countries that are a preferred destination for donors. It was the third largest recipient of funding from the Wellcome Trust in the UK in 2008/10 with a total of £8 million (US$12.6m).
Countries should also invest in research infrastructure and not focus solely on training. This, Keusch said, is necessary as donors are unlikely to do so. Donors such as the US’ National Institutes of Health believe that setting up research infrastructure is “the job of the countries”, he says.
Keusch was also involved in the scientific advisory council that drew up the Grand Challenges programme of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation a decade ago.
He encouraged governments to invest in high-risk projects as this would not only promote the continent’s economic growth but also attract the attention of donors like the NIH.
“The value of [high-risk research] is hugely stimulatory and it gets the creative juices flowing. It means you can explore, and that is the heart of innovation,” he says.
Keusch wants to see countries competing to increase their research spend:
“The argument is that the poorer countries that don’t invest need to say, ‘Well, look at them, they will be ahead of us and we shouldn’t fall behind like that.’”
He says increasing research expenditure will ensure that they are not caught off guard if donor funding declines.
“External funding is not going to continue to go up the way it has. The slope of the curve of investment is going to level off and ultimately decrease. But the need doesn’t change, the need continues to increase.”