Lack of science capacity 'threatens Africa's development'

Mićo Tatalović in SciDev.net: The "remarkable recent economic growth" in many African countries may be able to sustain science through domestic funding (rather than through external sources) — but a lack of scientists and research capacity is threatening to reel back that economic growth, a meeting has heard.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of many African countries has been growing at a rate of 6–8 per cent each year, amounting to almost doubling of GDPs every decade, according to Chris Whitty, chief scientific adviser and director of research at the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Whitty was speaking at the launch of the Royal Society-DFID Africa Capacity Building Initiative yesterday (1 November), at the Royal Society in London, United Kingdom.

But unlike in China, South Asia and South-East Asia, where there was a surplus of scientists, engineers, doctors and teachers trained at the early stages of countries' development, in most African countries there are up to 1,000 times fewer scientists than in Asian countries in the equivalent state of development.

"This is potentially a major block to the development of middle-income countries in Africa," Whitty said. "Developing the capacity of science in African countries, by African scientists, is going to be essential."...

Bir Hacheim in Libya, shot by Jerryscuba, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license