My Beauty Best Teacher

Glenda Kruss writes about University-Industry linkages and the South African experience:

Establishing effective cross-sector networks rather than limited contracts and consultancies can reconcile these two positions. Africa needs partnerships that both harness the innovation potential of university research and meet industrial needs for development. South Africa's best examples can lead the way...To create such partnerships, institutions first need to understand the competitive dynamics of their target industry, and what individual firms in their region could use. And they need to be realistic to avoid ambitious science parks or design centres failing.
Universities must build their general research capacity, and specific expertise in niche areas (most of South Africa's best networks are in just a few well-established universities that have well-organised research systems). Then, they need to develop research policies and mechanisms to specifically support partnerships. They must decide which partnerships will best promote their academic mission and serve their financial imperatives, as well as contributing to national development goals.

via SciDev

Open Access papers a boon for developing world scientists-SciDev
Supporting Nollywood the Directors Guild of Nigeria
Challenges for Craftspeople-BBC
Is Kenya teetering?-NYTimes
Challenges for the book industry-George Ngwane
Questioning the Nigerian Stock Exchange-Basil Enwegbara
The real Water Board-WashAfrica
South-South ties contd. Asian footsteps in the continent.
Power-sharing government is a recipe for “disaster”-FT
Leadership starts with you not him!-Joachim Ezeji
The Ghadafi virus-The Moor Next Door
Public-private investment partnerships in health systems-Output Based Healthcare
Examining Charles Soludo Nigeria's Central Bank Governor-234Next

Jacques Gaillard & Anne Marie Gaillard write in SciDev:

The diaspora model will never be a low cost, self-sufficient answer to Africa's scientific needs. Its effectiveness depends crucially on the internal dynamics of the home-based scientific communities. After all, a network of expatriates is at best an extension of a national scientific community, not a substitute. Efforts should therefore, first and foremost, focus on strengthening national scientific capacity particularly training and recruiting the next generation of scientists. If this is not done, the diaspora will only be a smart cloak hiding shabby clothes.

In SciDev Valerie Corfield writes:

Researchers in developing nations must become 'communicating scientists', sharing their knowledge beyond academia...Scientists must become proactive, and form a network of contacts beyond their own academic brotherhood. And they should recognise the value of science intermediaries, such as science centres and funding agencies' research translation offices...[continue reading]

SciDev reports:

Old-fashioned 'parachute science' — in which scientists from industrialised countries fly in to developing countries, obtain blood from a few patients and immediately return home with their samples — is no longer acceptable, say Frances Gotch and Jill Gilmour in Nature Immunology...Gotch and Gilmore have helped expand laboratories in Uganda to enable large-scale, international HIV vaccine trials to take place. They say trials must be carried out where the epidemic is worst and that their experience has shown high quality trials and good clinical practice, including sophisticated testing, can be done even in areas where resources are scarce.
Successful laboratory development requires a central 'supporting' laboratory as well as substantial investment in the training of laboratory and managerial staff, and sustained long-term support, they say.

Yara Prize winner Florence Wambugu discusses impediments to African agriculture.In an answer to a question about her focus on Bananas she stated:

Bananas are an orphan crop, like cassava, sorghum or sweet potato. It hasn't received the same attention as the crops used for export. But it is very important for food security, very important for women and children. When I was growing up, for example, banana was a baby food.
I realised when I looked around that the technology existed to double the yield and help poor farmers come out of poverty. So I brought together people from all along the value chain — businesses, farming communities, scientists — in what I call a participatory bottom-up approach. It is this holistic approach in linking farmers to the market that has brought success...[continue reading]

via Scidev
photo courtesy of Ole Walter Jacobsen

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• The African Green Revolution [Scientific American Magazine]

Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones make a case for a parallel 'Slow Race' in Science "...This 'slow race' emphasises pathways to poverty reduction that may involve science and technology, but are specific to local contexts.It recognises that technological fixes are not enough to achieve social progress, and that social, cultural and institutional inputs are also key. It sees science and technology as part of a bottom-up, participatory process of development, in which citizens take centre stage..."
via SciDev

Athar Osama writes about strengthening South-South scientific and technological research collaboration in SciDev:

Scientific collaboration between developed countries, such as members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and to a lesser extent between developed and developing countries (often referred to as North–North and North–South collaboration respectively) has become increasingly popular since the 1970s and ‘80s. But South–South collaboration between developing countries has only recently emerged.
Such collaboration is now growing in scientific and economic importance. South–South research collaboration can promote research on problems that have low priorities in the North, and can provide shared opportunities for capacity building. It also fosters social and economic links between countries, potentially helping them strengthen their position in the global economy.

From Arnoldo Ventura in SciDev:

Helping higher education confront development goals means fully appreciating the process of innovation, which in turn hinges on interlocking visions, collaboration, exchange, reciprocity, and cooperation. Progress will need a greater willingness to assess and take risks. And that requires a change in attitudes, particularly more tolerance of failure...[continue reading]

George Essegbey writes in SciDev:

To appreciate the crucial need for innovation and the imperatives of science and technology, Ghana(read Sub-Saharan Africa) needs to develop a scientific habit of mind throughout its society and economy.
One way to achieve this is through an expansive and effective programme recognising that innovation happens within a framework of people's worldview, their belief systems and other cultural aspects.
Ghanaian society needs to wage a war against poverty, but it must first battle the forces that militate against a science culture. And just as countries can be mobilised for war, Ghana could be oriented towards science.

Christopher Chetsanga writing in Scidev:

courtesy of IDP

It is those who generate new knowledge, who can patent it and convert it to wealth that will make a difference in a community. Such S&T capabilities will enable a nation to overcome technology barriers. That way young scientists can learn to swim with the technology current rather than watching from the shoreline. But our universities are in danger of functioning as diploma factories rather than knowledge repositories.

More here

The water provision debate continues, what works and the building of viable providers should have precedent over ideological posturing-Water and Sanitation Media Network.
Retooling education-Global Guerrillas
A terrible plight the hounding of Albinos-The Economist
Matching health research to local needs-SciDev
Shackles of religion?-GhanaWeb
Living Large in Liberia-NGO Expatriates

In SciDev Linda Nordling asks "Does Africa really need new idealism?" in its innovation policy.Commenting on a recent 'Knowledge Swaraj' manifesto which:

...suggests countries establish 'innovation fora' to debate technology investments and choices more broadly. And it wants funding for scientific 'centres of excellence' to give way to support for science that addresses local needs.

In addition it:

...will go a step further in promoting the 'domestication' of science in Africa, says ATPS executive director, Kevin Urama.He says that Africa's confidence in its own science — traditional knowledge — dropped with colonialism and the arrival of Western science traditions. He argues that this cultural loss underpins Western-sponsored science's inability to improve the lives of ordinary Africans.

More here

If this is "Idealism" I would suggest we have further doses of it. The lack of a self-reinforcing scientific culture can be traced to the very lack of a local intrinsic need and or connection to research as its currently practiced.

Calestous Juma makes a case for strenghthening engineering education he
"...argues for more engineering academies to engage young engineers and practitioners and generate innovative solutions to sustainable development. Africa has 12 national science academies, as well as a continental one, but only one engineering academy,Nationmedia.
via Scidev and TheGuardian


photo courtesy of the Guardian

Secrets of an African First Lady-Oluremi Obasanjo's Bitter-Sweet: My Life with Obasanjo
The need for equity in African research-SciDev
More on the industrial revolution
Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard @ MIT-NYTimes
Ministers to discuss an African investment bank...what about the AFC?

Image via Wikipedia

In SciDev:

Makerere University is turning itself around. Change began in the early 1990s. Makerere devised a series of university-wide strategic plans. In 1992 it went semi-private, a pivotal move that generated much-needed revenue from students (although science benefited less than other subjects).It is the changes of the last decade, however, that are attracting international interest. As a result of them the university has started producing healthy numbers of PhD students and has created a vibrant research culture...[continue reading]

Matching research to local needs-SciDev
Shades of Zimbabwe? The ANC and its stance on corruption The Guardian
Global Voices points us to a piece about "Chocolate Tourism"
The collapse of financial globalization-Council for Foreign Relations
Failures and Solutions - Afrifail...
Centre for Entrepreneurship and Development Research-UNN