News Brief: Week of May 3 2010

1. We care what you think, so please contact me or anyone on my staff with your ideas, questions, or comments (you can email us at takeaction@actionaid.org or just give us a call at 1-800-957-1768).
2. You can help generate $100 billion to fight poverty and support increased investment in women and small farmers. If you haven't already, write President Obama and urge him to support a Financial Speculation Tax that would place a minuscule 0.25% or less tax on speculative stock market transactions, like derivatives.
3. Share Fertile Ground with your friends and colleagues, and tell them about what you are learning about small farmers who, if given a chance, could quite literally grow their way out of poverty and hunger. You can learn more from an interview I did with Voice of America last week.

 Knowledge is central to a nation’s competitiveness and its economic destiny. Over the past decade Africa as a whole, due to improved governance and better commodity prices has done well in terms of GDP growth. There is also evidence of improved factor productivity in agricultural production. However, non-Africans are evidently doing even better out of Africa’s natural resources in terms of capturing value addition, skilled employment and capital gains, even in agricultural commodities. This is an indictment of Africa’s weak science and technology capacity. Agriculture is Africa’s greatest industry and is recognized in the Lagos declaration and by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as the essential engine for economic development. However, all major studies (WSSD, IAC, and Commission for Africa) have highlighted the urgent need to strengthen Africa’s human and institutional capacity for agricultural innovation. African governments have made great progress in providing for more graduates. Student intake at existing institutions has been increased several fold. In addition, from less than 50 in 1950 there are now over 200 tertiary education institutions providing courses in agriculture and natural resource management. Never the less the International Foundation for Science (IFS) has warned of the dire consequences of the ‘missing generation of African scientists’. The assessment of national agricultural research systems conducted by Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) found systemic human and institutional capacity weaknesses including the imminent retirement of a disproportionate number of senior staff in the absence of adequately experienced successors. The African Union through NEPAD has developed the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), as a framework to revitalize the agricultural sector. This is presently being implemented by the member governments to contribute to achieving 6% annual economic growth rate in the continent. CAADP Pillar four, for which FARA is the Lead Institution, focuses on strengthening agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption. Implementation of this and the other three pillars requires that the continent develops a strong science and technology capacity, both in terms of the infrastructure and human resource base. Hence capacity strengthening is a cross cutting component of Pillar IV.  In addition to its overall commitment to strengthening research and training institutions NEPAD is also supporting the establishment and strengthening of recognized specialized centres of excellence in areas of science that are critical to enabling Africa to take full advantage of what modern science has to offer. It is critical that the gene, nano and other revolutions should not by-pass Africa as the Green Revolution did. Universities must play a pivotal role in providing the human and institutional resource required by these centres and industry as a whole.   The surge of formerly undeveloped Asian economies in the past which are now well ahead of Africa is a painful demonstration of the consequence of Africa’s under investment in education and training. The unacceptable state of affairs in African tertiary education is well articulated in the Millennium Declaration of African Universities and the presentation to the Royal Society by His Excellency President Paul Kagame. Only well educated and highly trained, skilled and motivated Africans will provide the solution to Africa’s poverty and continued economic marginalization. A recent World Bank study concluded “African universities and other institutions of higher learning ultimately will be responsible for replenishing the stock of human capital in national research and extension services, and for providing them with the broader set of skills necessary to grow agriculture in the 21st century. However, they are ill prepared at present to train the continent’s next generation of agricultural scientists, professionals, and technicians. As stated by NEPAD in the Framework for African Agricultural Productivity “…urgent action must be taken to restore the quality of graduate and postgraduate agricultural education in Africa.” Africa, as a continent, must urgently respond to the human resource crisis by strengthening and coordinating investments in Higher Education. Accordingly, the representatives at the FARA General Assembly Meeting held in June 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa, called for a Ministerial Meeting to mobilise support and resources for Higher Education in science and agriculture. The Advisory Committee on S&T for ACP Agricultural and Rural Cooperation which is supported by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation - ACP-EU Advisory Committee, the World Bank, several other international organizations and regional bodies have called for national governments to pay more attention to the crisis in higher education. They further call on the international community to increase investments in Tertiary Education especially in science, engineering and agriculture. During the Meeting of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) held 27-29 August 2007 in Maputo, Mozambique, the Vice Chancellors of Universities from eastern and southern Africa recommended that because of the urgent need to re-build the deteriorating human resource base in the continent, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the issue of Higher Education be put at the highest possible political level of the African governments. In this regard, it was recommended that a regional meeting of Ministers responsible for Education, Agriculture, Science & Technology, Finance and Planning be convened by NEPAD and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Further it was also recommended that a few High Policy level champions, especially Heads of States, be invited to address the meeting. The just concluded Global Conference on Agricultural Research held in Montpellier, France (28-31 March 2010) came to the same conclusion: Africa will not achieve the Millennium Development Goal target of Food Security and reducing poverty without strong and sustained investment in Agricultural Tertiary education, the key catalyst for driving innovations in the agricultural sector. The meeting called for high level policy intervention and a partnership approach to address the human and institutional capacity gaps in Africa. Objectives of the Ministerial Meeting 

1. To focus attention of persons with the authority and influence to make a difference on the state of tertiary education in Africa (including a review of progress in implementing the Dar-es-Salaam meeting of Ministers and the Cape Town Declaration of Ministers responsible for Science and Technology)
2. To set out what is required for the universities to become learning institutions producing graduates who are fit for purpose in 21^st century Africa including how to get the facilities, professional satisfaction and remuneration required to retain Africa’s best brains in Africa.
3. Facilitate international networking to spur and sustain re-engineering of Higher Education Institutions in Africa.
4. Mobilize African universities to be more pro-active in engaging in Africa’s development and in particular to make their due contribution to research and innovation
5. Mobilize political and development commitment for increasing investments in Higher Education in Africa

 Approaches 1. Hold Policy dialogue platforms involving Key Ministries involved in Higher Education, such as Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Science & Technology, Finance and Economic Planning, other development actors, Regional and Sub-regional bodies involved in Higher Education, Universities and others to share lessons and approaches. 2. Hold a meeting on the potential of African universities to drive the innovation Africa needs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Universities and their co-actors will present their vision of what would be possible if they could realize their full potential to conduct science and what that would require in terms of human, institutional, physical and financial resources. The presentations will present a practical picture of ‘what could be’ set against a background of the actual conditions under which the universities are functioning today.  3. Feed the deliberations from the policy dialogues into the Ministerial Forum.  Conveners The Conference is being convened by Uganda Government and RUFORUM in partnership with NEPAD, COMESA, FARA, CTA, Association of African Universities (AAU), FANRPAN (Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network), ATPS (African Technology Policy Network) and ANAFE (African Network of Agriculture and Forestry Education). Target participants Policy makers, especially Ministers responsible for Education, Agriculture, Science & Technology, Finance and Planning; Technical experts in the focus ministries; University Vice Chancellors and their Deans, University Networks, Development Partners/NGOs, sub-regional organizations, University partners in Research for Development such as research and extension, Farmer organizations, and knowledge centres and networks within and outside Africa. Conference information Will be posted at the conference website (www.ruforum.org/Ministerial_conference) Conference Contact Details Prof Adipala EkwamuRUFORUM SecretariatPlot 151 Garden Hill, Makerere UniversityPO Box 7062 Kampala, UgandaTel 256 414 535939/256 772 601875Fax: 256 414 534153Email: eadipala@agric.mak.ac.ug or eadipala@yahoo.com