Riporto, sperando di f are cosa gradita, il testo di un editoriale sulle prospettive di sviluppo scientifico-tecnologico in Africa pubblicato dalla rivista Nature, seguito, a circa un mese di distanza, da un commento di uno studioso africano (all'estero....). E' una dimensione dell'africa a cui non siamo tanto abituati, che sicuramente influirà sul modo di porsi, anche turisticamente, dei vari paesi africani, avvicinandoli alla cultura occidentale (ahimè? che la nostra fame di viaggi esclusivi contrasti con le esigenze di sviluppo e ricchezza?). Inoltre trovo interessante e un po' provocatorio il successivo commento del lettore.

Poichè non so se si possono postare files pdf al pari delle immagini incollo il tutto nel mio messaggio, che però diventa un po' greve. Eventuali istruzioni in merito sarebbero assai benaccette

Ciao a tutti


Adriano


NATURE|VOL 433 | 17 FEBRUARY 2005 |www.nature.com/nature 669
Africa 2005
The world’s poorest continent is rightly at the top of the global agenda this year. But the agenda needs to be set by Africa,
with the outside world in a supporting role — not the other way round.
17 February 2005 Volume 433 Issue no 7027
Tackling the neglect of Africa is high on the list of priorities of
the G8 — the world’s eight largest industrialized nations —
and the European Union (EU) in 2005. This neglect was once
described as a “scar on the conscience of the world” by Tony Blair,
Britain’s prime minister, who this year chairs the G8. Chief among
the items for action are a promise of debt relief for the poorest countries,
improved terms of trade with the EU, and up to $50 billion
each year in aid through a planned fund known as the International
Finance Facility.
It is likely that Blair and the UK chancellor, Gordon Brown, will
succeed in getting endorsement for their plans from many G8 leaders.
But that still leaves two bigger obstacles: raising the money, and
deciding how to spend it. In a report published in January, Jeffrey
Sachs, an adviser to the United Nations secretary-general Kofi
Annan, said that to meet the Millennium Development Goals — a
series of targets to halve global poverty, hunger and disease — rich
countries will need to raise their annual aid in support of the goals
by a factor of four to $121 billion in 2006, rising still further to $189
billion in 2015.
If additional aid cheques begin to flow, who will decide how the
money is spent? To help Africans set their priorities, Blair and
Bob Geldof set up the Commission for Africa — a group of 17 commissioners
comprising world leaders and heads of UN agencies
(mostly from Africa) who have been charged with asking people what
they think international aid should be spent on.
Technology transfer
Over the past few months, the commission has organized meetings
and online discussion groups, canvassing thousands of people,
including politicians, professionals, the business community and
non-governmental organizations in many countries. The results of
this innovative exercise will be published in a report in March and
handed to the G8 leaders when they meet in Scotland in July.
In one of the commission’s interim reports seen by Nature, there
is strong support for more international aid to be spent on strengthening
science and technology in Africa, including the transfer of
Western technology to the continent, as well as accelerated efforts
towards a malaria vaccine. Some of these findings seem to have taken
the commissioners by surprise: they didn’t seem to think (at least initially)
that Africans would consider boosting science and technology
to be a priority.
To their credit, international aid donors are well aware that there
is enthusiasm in Africa for more aid to be spent on science and
technology. Of all the developing countries, those in Africa have
found it hardest to absorb and adapt technology from abroad,
and have lagged behind in setting up their own research institutions
in sufficiently large numbers to create a critical mass of productive
researchers. According to the Sachs report, African countries have
on average only 18 scientists and engineers per million people,
compared with 69 in southern Asia, 273 in Latin America, and 903 in
eastern Asia.
Substantive action has already been taken. The Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation — already busy with an ambitious healthcare
researchagenda — last week named the science academies ofNigeria,
South Africa and Uganda as recipients of a US$20-million grant.
Britain’s Department for International Development also has plans
to increase its spending on boosting research and development in
Africa, and in December it appointed Gordon Conway, former president
of The Rockefeller Foundation in New York, to help it devise a
new science and technology strategy.
Setting the agenda
All this should provide grounds for hope. Yet it is vital that as aid
donors step forward with more money, they are faced with a plan
based on meeting real needs on the ground; otherwise they may set
the agenda themselves. At a meeting of aid agencies and scientists in
London last month, for example, nearly every speaker promised to
respond to the needs of Africa. But in reality, the meeting had been
called by the Canadian and UK governments to see if they could
coordinate their spending priorities. A select group of scientists
from Africa were also present, but their status was merely that of
invited guests to a party.
In public, few of the African delegates questioned this reversal of
roles, perhaps not wanting to offend their hosts and risk cutting off
future funding prospects. In private, however, they were more critical.
One exception was John Mugabe, a scientific adviser to the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), based in Pretoria,
South Africa.Mugabe said that Africa is changing because Africans
want to change, and that change will take place with or without
international aid.
Mugabe is right.Multiparty government is at last taking root in
Africa. It is early days still, but the leaders of Nigeria, South Africa
and Ethiopia are showing a willingness to turn their countries
around.African countries see the EU as a model for their own African
Union, and under NEPAD they have also agreed to evaluate each
other’s performance in an effort to expose corruption.
The next generation
In the scientific community, a new generation of able and confident
leaders is coming forward, despite the brain drain. Indigenous
investment is taking place, too. Nigeria, for example, is in the midst
of overhauling its colonial-era research infrastructure with the help
of Japan and UNESCO. Kenya is hosting several initiatives to boost
agricultural research. Mozambique and Tanzania are showing that
centres of excellence in healthcare research can be set up and run in
a resource-scarce environment.
Africa is clearly on the move.But so far it seems that aid donors in
rich countries are a little confused as to how they should respond.
This may be partly because, as they admit, they are historically used
to telling people in Africa what is best for them,and then complaining
when their plans go awry. Aid agencies are now encountering a
different generation of Africans and must learn to change gear.They
should empower many more Africans with the confidence to chart
their own futures. And they must have the confidence themselves
to trust the judgement of those who already have a clear idea of
what they want. ?

We Africans must take
our future in our hands
Sir— Your Editorial “Africa 2005” (Nature
433, 669; 2005) stresses that it needs to be
Africans, not donors, who decide how to
spend the billions of dollars Africa is to
receive in aid. But money alone is not
what the continent needs for sustainable
development. African countries have
received billions of dollars in aid and loans
during the past half century, and the result
is what we have today.
The continent needs good management,
relevant projects and a boost to science
and technology. Regional economic
integration combined with increased
exports of our products and competitive
investments are enough to sustain
economical development.
Many people in Africa are aware of the
real problems and their solutions. In 2000,
when the Department of Education in
Rwanda negotiated scholarships with a
non-governmental organization for 100
students to study in the United States, the
minister of education told us that the
country needs scientists and engineers.
Before coming to the United States to
study computer science under this scheme,
I had always thought that Africa’s underdevelopment
and poverty were mainly
caused by Western nations through
slavery, colonization and imperialism.
This concept stemmed from the information
I had at the time. But even if it contains
some truth, I have come to realize that
the current situation depends on what we
Africans are doing in our continent and
on our attitudes towards international
exchanges.
To help poor countries is not bad. But
Western nations can’t help us to become as
developed as they are. I share a vision with
Nature and with John Mugabe, the
scientific adviser to the New Partnership
for Africa’s Development: the future of
Africa is in the hands of Africans.
Justin Hategekimana
8228 Ohio River Boulevard, Apt 45, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania 15202, USA
NATURE|VOL 434 |31 MARCH 2005 |www.nature.com/nature

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