UNECA signs MoU with Spain’s CTIC to spur ICT innovation in Africa

By Michael Ouma

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Technology Centre for ICTs (CTIC), a technology foundation based in Spain.

The MoU is focused on three main areas – enhancing governance through the adoption of open data system by African countries, developing innovation centres in the continent as well as the establishment of Creatic Laboratory which will acts as an innovation hub for the continent’s youth who are keen to create new ICT applications.

Speaking during the launch of the partnership which was held at the ongoing Sceince with Africa 2 conference in Addis Ababa, Aida Opoku-Mensah, UNECA’s Director of ICTs Science and Technology Division (ISTD) said that the MoU aims to spur the development of technologies that encourage adoption of open data which enhance open and transparent governance.

“The youth do have very creative ideas and the need the support to ensure successful transformation of the ideas into products and services,” said Mensah, adding that UNECA is to ensure that the ideas are implementable.

The MoU’s second focus area is to involve the creation of innovation centres meant to develop innovative ICT applications that could help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to introduce ICT processes in their operations to enhance competitiveness.

Mr Roberto Paraja, CTIC’s president said that the Creatic Lab is meant to spur innovation among Africa’s youth by enabling them to develop their ideas, adding that the infrastructure for the lab is already available. To undertake projects at the Creatic Labs, CTIC is to issue out call for proposals which will be submitted via UNECA, with the successful applicants being given a one-year grant to enable conduct and work on their IT and internet-related projects at the Creatic lab facility in Spain.

“Students eligible for the grant have to be final year or those who have just graduated. Ideas and proposals should focus on use of information and communications technology and we will also evaluate the viability of translating the project to benefit the end-user,” said Mr Paraja. Even though CTIC has ongoing projects and MoUs with other regional and national institutions, the MoU with UNECA “focuses on youth’s innovative ideas by ensuring adequate support,” said CTIC’s Director General, Mr Pablo Balbin.

The research projects undertaken at the CTIC lab would look at the scope and priorities of both CTIC and UNECA, with between two to five students expected to be based at the CTIC in Spain every year. This year, the CTIC/UNECA partnership has set aside € 100,000 to be given out as research grants to qualifying applicants, with the amount being increased in subsequent years according to the number of qualifying students.

Kenya to host Pan African University’s Science and Technology Theme

By Michael Ouma

Kenya has been selected to be East African host of the Pan African University’s basic sciences, technology and innovation theme by the Africa Union Commission (AUC).

The Pan African University, part of the AUC’s Plan of Action, aims to revitalize higher education and enhance collaboration among institutions of higher learning and research.

The other themes of the Pan African University will be hosted by other regions of the continent with West Africa hosting the life and earth sciences at Nigeria’s Lagos University while the governance, humanities and social sciences theme is to be hosted by the Central African region in Cameroon.

North Africa is to host the water and energy theme while space sciences will go to South Africa even though specific countries and institutions hosting the themes are yet to be identified.

Speaking at the second Science With Africa (SWA 2) meeting in Addis Ababa, Ms Vera Brenda Ngosi, AUC’s director of human resources, science and technology said that the AUC Pan African University ia aimed at “enhancing links with industry as well as identification and strengthening of networks of centres of excellence with a view for science and technology to contribute to the global pool of knowledge and innovation.”

The SWA 2 meeting, hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa (UNECA), with the theme “Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, aims to address innovative policy tools and measures to build the necessary human capital, STI (science, technology and innovation) infrastructure, financial instruments, strategies targeting under represented groups like youth and women and international collaboration.

The meeting is a follow-up to the first Science with Africa meeting held in 2008 and which recommended that African countries should ensure that intellectual property resource (IPR) institutions are adequately funded and operate efficiently

“To implement this link, the AUC is in the process of establishing a Pan African University as a network of thematic universities and satellite campuses in five thematic areas,” said Ms Ngosi.

The decision to make Kenya the host of the basic sciences, technology and innovation theme was reach ed at the African Ministerial Council on Science and Technology (AMCOST) held in Egypt in March this year

Forming part of the AMCOST meeting’s agenda was a report on the progress on Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action, including the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators Initiative (ASTII).

In April this year, other Eastern African countries declined to endorse Kenya as the host of the basic sciences, technology and innovation theme, with education ministers from 13 Eastern African countries arguing that some nations had not been involved in the exercise.

At a meeting held in Nairobi, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Eritrea and Seychelles’ representatives said that they had not been asked to express interest in hosting the institution.

Ms Ngosi announced that the AUC has designed a € 15 million African Mini-Research Framework programme to directly finance and build the capacity of the Commission to manage research grants.

“To respond to the techno-entrepreneurship needs of the African continent, the Commission is at an advanced stage of establishing science and technology incubators programme,” she said.

Adoption of science, technology and innovation is key to Africa’s development

BY DAVID MUWANGA

African countries should adopt and implement science technology and innovation policies if they are to realize potential economic growth.

That is why countries like Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda among others are likely to join the top ten countries because they have adopted STI policies that would ultimately enable them achieve the Millenium Development Goals (MDG’s).

“These countries including other African countries have adopted country Vision programmes targeted to be achieved at different times but it will only be possible for them to achieve the MDG’s if they are fully committed to the implementation of the visoin’s,” advised the director general and chief executive officer of Nigeria’s national office for technology acquisition and promotion (NOTAP) Eng. Dr. Umar Bindir.

He said that Rwanda has adopted a vision on the Information Communication Technology (ICT) revolution, Uganda is adopting the Industrialisation strategy as advocated for by President Yoweri Museveni while Kenya is implementing the vision 2030 while Nigeria’s is vision 2020.

He said that the three countries are projected to join other developed countries if they effectively implement their country’s vision’s.

“The vision’s can further be enhanced by each of the countries in Africa to develop science, technology and innovation (STI) policies and clearly articulate what is implementable within the country’s resources, they must set up vibrant science, technology and innovation systems that bring together all stakeholders into one building and provide a budgetary provision of one percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) annually,” he said in a keynote address on the theme “Linkages of Science and Technology to enhance Innovation for Sustainable socio-0economic development in Africa”.

This was at the opening of a four-day Science With Africa (SWA) conference held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last week on the theme “Science, Innovation and Entreprenuership.

The conference organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) was aimed at exploring policies, measures and mechanisms to meet Africa’s development goals by harnessing the potential of entreprenuership and innovation to transform new ideas into improved products, processes and businesses.

He said that African countries have for long lagged behind due to lack of coherent STI policies thus forcing them to rely on knowledge provided by foreigners.

“The posture of STI IN Africa is that each of the three faces its own direction and that is why you find mechanics being called engineers because people do not know or see what scientists are doing,” he explained.

He warned scientists against taking themselves as highly qualified, highly skilled, developers of concepts and pilot projects when what they are doing is not relevant to the people.

“This is the very reason why development partners give us funds and they don’t see what we do with the funds resulting into our people remaining in poverty, practicing primitive agriculture, with outdated storage and food marketing facilities among other problems,” he said.

UNECA Head of ICT, Science and Technology Ida Opoku-Mensah said that African countries should stop relying on Aid.

“We need to invest in science, technology and innovations to develop our own products that will ultimately be consumed by our generations to come,” she advised.

She criticized donor funded research projects that are established to benefit the donors instead of the countries the funds are meant for.

“Most Universities research projects are donor funded but who has ever carried out a study whether these studies benefit us or not, we need to invest in the development of our own research, science, technology and innovations that would benefit us,” she said.

She said that the media in Africa and the communities find scientists incommunicable.

“Scientists have made their sector impenetretable but you need to share the information for the benefit of others because if the media does not communicate, it means we are doing nothing in science breakthrough whereas we have them,” she noted

Science, technology and Innovation policy to contribute to Ethiopia’s economic growth

BY DAVID MUWANGA

Ethiopian Minister of Science and Technology Juneydi Saddo has revealed that the government finalizing the country’s science technology and innovation (STI) policy that will provide a solid ground for the country’s economic growth that is projected to grow at 11% in the next five years.

“Africa has recorded economic growth of five percent of the gross domestic product despite the global financial crisis that hit the world recently but it is projected to grow at seven percent by the year 2011,” he said.

“We are finalizing the STI policy and this will contribute further to the Ethiopia’s economic growth that it is projected to grow at not less than ten percent in the next five years,” he said at the opening of the Science With Africa conference at the United Nationas Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA0 headquaters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last week.

He said that ten years ago world leaders proclaimed to the achievement of the Mellinium Development Goals (MDG’s) aimed at improving the living standards of the people by the year 2015.

“We are five years away from the scheduled year of 2015 and Africa countries have taken various steps to ensure these are achieved,” he said.

“However we need to re-design our education systems,, improve energy supply and the infrastructure, water, transport systems and communication in order to reach the many unreachable people in various parts of our countries,”.

“Science, Technology and Innovation remain the key instruments that we can adopt in order to achieve these objectives and implement the projects,” he said.

He said that it is high time Africa paid much attention to the transformation of societies through the adoption of STI in order to accelerate technological and scientific developments in order to eradicate poverty and ensure security.

“We need to reduce poverty which requires us to find new scientific solutions to meet the needs of our people, we need a strong national system that can transform and promote the STI and linkages between Universities, researchers and the private sector,” he told participants.

“It is therefore important that this conference comes up with tools that we can use to meet the challenges that are hindering Africa’s development,” he advised.

Dar es Salaam University Lecturer Prof. Sospeter Muhongo warned that African countries should develop new scientific solutions to respond to the rapidly growing population.

“We need accelerated utilization of science technology and innovation to meet the increasing needs of the growing African population,” he said.

“It is good there is political will to invest in research and development with Algeria committing one percent of its gross domestic product to research and development, Tanzania is planning to spend $250m while South Africa is investing 0.9% of her GDP,” he explained.

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