DONORS TO AFRICAN AGRI RESEARCH COME ON FIRE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang umaga! Good morning from Manila!

Africa seems to be the favorite destination today for aid funds from everywhere, most specially from European countries. We wonder whether this is Europe’s way of expiating its guilt over the European powers’ enslavement, plunder and colonization of Africa.

A recent issue concerning aid funds dovetails on agricultural research. While there are clear positive benefits to donated funds, there are gaps that must be addressed. This identification of a new problem is already a brightening news for the continent, as the problem can be addressed more squarely.

The news is contained below.

[Writ 05 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]

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African agricultural research ‘neglected ‘ by donor policies

Christina Scott

24 September 2008 | EN

Flickr/MikeBlyth

[CAPE TOWN] A lack of emphasis on agricultural research in development policy over the last quarter of a century is one of the main reasons for the deterioration of African farming, according to a UN report released this month (15 September).

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report on Africa’s economic development also cites the small size of each country’s research stations, isolated researchers and high staff turnover as other factors that helped “prevent the attainment of a critical mass of scientific and technical staff”.

“In Sub-Saharan Africa there are problems with agricultural research, which determines the rate of technological change,” Sam Gayi, lead researcher of the report told SciDev.Net.

As a result, except for maize and more recently cassava, “most of Sub-Saharan Africa has no immediately applicable crop technology that might, with adequate price incentives, substantially increase the profitability of investments in agriculture,” the report concludes.

“Only a quarter of the total crop area of Sub-Saharan Africa is planted with modern crop varieties,” says Gayi.

Credit provision for farmers, as well as investment in infrastructure and research, were abandoned by donor-dictated development policies in many parts of Africa, with long-lasting detrimental effects, the report says.

The authors also criticise many state agricultural budgets for being skewed towards administrative costs rather than research.

They say gaps in communicating research and policy developments, combined with shortages of credit — particularly the dissolution of marketing boards that often gave cash advances to small-scale farmers — have made it more difficult for improved government policies to be translated into improved yields in the fields.

The report singles out Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and South Africa as countries that have managed to improve their agricultural exports. Côte d’Ivoire continues to benefit from “huge investments”, including government funds for research, made in the 1960s in a diverse range of crops.

The authors also say that restrictive standards on exports are placing a burden on African nations, who struggle to meet them.

“Several African countries do not have the technical capacity or resources to comply with the required standards,” says Hezron Nyangito, former director of the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) and newly-appointed deputy governor of the Central Bank of Kenya.

KIPPRA research suggests that Kenyan farmers would have to increase agricultural spending tenfold and Uganda would need to spend about US$300 million to upgrade its honey-processing plants to comply with European Union standards.

DRUG-RESISTANT TB NEARS END WITH POWERFUL NEW TOOL

DRUG-RESISTANT TB NEARS END WITH POWERFUL NEW TOOL

Erle Frayne Argonza

 

In the domain of field epidemiology comes a very brightening news about a powerful new tool that can diagnose drug-resistant tuberculosis or TB.

 

TB had ravaged many countries for centuries, and was only curbed for a while after the 2^nd world war. But flawed policies and practices led to the near-catastrophic return of TB to near-pandemic levels.

 

The news about the powerful new tool is contained below.

 

Happy reading!

 

[12 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]

 

 

 

Powerful new tool to diagnose drug-resistant TB

Sharon Davis

2 July 2008 | EN

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Flickr/AJC1

[DURBAN] Clinical trials of a new molecular technique have found it to be effective at quickly identifying multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in resource-poor settings.

As a result, the WHO has endorsed the use of the test in all countries with MDR-TB.

South Africa’s National Health Laboratory Service and Medical Research Council (MRC), and the Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics (FIND) collaborated to test 30,000 patients suspected to have MDR-TB in South Africa between 2007 and 2008. They used both the rapid test and conventional testing.

They announced the results at the opening of the 2008 South African Tuberculosis conference in Durban this week (1 July).

The test uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology to amplify Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA and look for genetic mutations that cause resistance to drugs.

It is the first of its kind to be used against TB and the first new tool for TB in 50 years, says Martie van der Walt, acting director of the TB Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit at the MRC.

The new TB test yielded results on 92 per cent of all samples compared with about three-quarters (77.5 per cent) of samples tested by conventional methods. It takes between eight hours and two days to get a result, compared to six to eight weeks for conventional testing.

Patients who receive appropriate drugs sooner minimise their risk of acquiring additional drug resistance, van der Walt told SciDev.Net. Earlier diagnosis also cuts the chance of infecting others.

Seventeen countries will receive the tests over the next four years through the WHO Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility. FIND and the WHO’s Global Laboratory Initiative will help countries build the capacity — such as laboratory equipment and trained staff — to carry out tests based on PCR techniques.

Mario Raviglione, director of the Stop TB Partnership said in a teleconference this week (30 June) that laboratories in Lesotho, where MDR-TB rates are among the highest in the world, would be ready to use the test within three months.

Laboratory technicians in Ethiopia have been trained, and facilities upgraded, and rapid testing is expected to begin by the end of 2008. Technicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda have also been trained and are using the test on a smaller scale.

The new tests will be phased in from 2009–2011 in Bangladesh, Indonesia Myanmar and Vietnam.

Developed by Hain LifeScience in Germany, and Innogenetics in Belgium, the test has previously been used on a limited scale by researchers and private laboratories in resource-rich countries, said Richard O’Brien, head of product evaluation and demonstration at FIND.

At US$5 per patient, the test halves diagnosis costs — excluding associated infrastructure and laboratory capacity costs necessary for molecular testing. Using the tests will still be cheaper than treating a larger epidemic, according to O’Brien.

The success has rekindled commercial and research interest in creating a test tailored for extremely drug-resistant TB. A prototype should be available later in 2008. 

BOOSTING HEALTH RESEARCH IN AFRICA

Erle Frayne Argonza

The Millenium Development Goal has been seriously reflected upon and guiding the actions of member states of the UN since its release earlier this decade. The target of halving poverty by 2015 is a tall order, as the key result areas for intervention are legion.

The countries of Africa are surely working their way in a most cooperative manner across the continent, via their regional/continental formations such as the African Union. From the continent comes the news about planning to draw a common framework for health research, and the challenge to put them into action.

Enjoy your read!

[06 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Time to turn words into deeds on health research

27 June 2008 | EN

An Ethiopian doctor conducting research

WHO/TDR/Crump

African ministers have committed themselves to a set of actions to boost health research in their countries. Now they must implement them.

There is much encouragement to be gained from the commitment to health research demonstrated by Africa’s health and science ministers at a meeting in Algeria this week (23–26 June). At the meeting, ministers from 17 African countries announced a collective commitment to ensuring a higher priority for health research at both a national and regional level, and across the continent.

Improving health in the developing world is one of the key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These include, for example, reducing the mortality rate among children under five by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters, and making a significant impact on malaria and other tropical diseases. None of these targets will be achieved without extensive research into new methods of diagnosis and treatment.

The Algiers meeting was organised as a preparatory meeting for the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health that takes place in Bamako, Mali, in November 2008.

Its key outcome was the ‘Algiers Declaration’, a commendable list of 22 actions that ministers agreed to implement before the end of 2009, and intended to ensure that the potential contribution of health research to achieving the MDGs is delivered.

The actions include increasing funding for health research and research capacity-building by African governments, and boosting mechanisms for scientific and ethical oversight of all such activity. The ministers also agreed to “support the translation of research results into policy and action by creating appropriate mechanisms and structures, including promoting networks of researchers, decision-makers and policymakers for evidence-based public health action”.

Communication challenges

Provided these commitments are met, Africa’s health will receive a significant boost. But it became clear from the discussions in Algiers that there are several key issues that must be tackled urgently if this is to happen.

One is the need for better information about the health priorities of the continent — and a clearer idea within African countries themselves about how these priorities can best be addressed through research.

Donor agencies from the developed world — who provide much of the funding for such research — are frequently criticised by African stakeholders for seeking to impose an agenda that reflects the donor’s own priorities. But many of these agencies insist that they would be delighted to engage in a more informed, two-way dialogue on what their research priorities should be.

This means that African nations need to develop their own capacity for setting research priorities. Two essential components of this are adequate information about current research efforts and the development of professional skills among both research administrators and government officials — part of a broader need to develop a robust research infrastructure.

Another necessity is the development of stronger networks to ensure that African researchers and politicians — including particular ministers — communicate with each other more effectively. Far too often, gaps remain between scientists’ understanding of what is needed for health research to be put into practice, and the willingness of decision-makers to implement the steps that make this possible.

Ethical considerations

An additional need is to boost national capacities to address the ethical dimensions of health research — particularly at a time when the activities of researchers from the developed world, including those carrying out large-scale clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies, are under closer scrutiny.

A survey of capacity to conduct ethical reviews in 634 research institutes in 43 countries was presented at the Algiers meeting by a WHO team. They found that half of those who have a “high research activity” don’t have written policies requiring researchers to obtain informed consent from trial participants.

There is still much debate to be had about how the situation can be improved. Nevertheless, it is clear that health research in Africa needs to be conducted in a more ethical manner than in the past. And building the capacity to achieve this must form an integral part of future plans. 

Closer collaboration

A third priority to emerge from the meeting was the need to encourage more research collaboration. The final declaration calls for promotion of equitable cooperation, technology transfer and collaboration, emphasising that this requires both North–South and South–South dimensions. 

But it became clear at the meeting that delegates — mostly African ministers and researchers — had a greater interest in the second of those. They were more interested in how African countries could transfer knowledge between themselves than in receiving knowledge from Northern institutions, a sentiment echoed by Elias Zerhouni, the director of the US National Institutes of Health.

Finally there was general acceptance among the Algiers delegates that none of these aims could be achieved without adequate funding.

Participants broadly agreed that not only should African countries seek to boost their spending on research and development to at least one per cent of their gross domestic product — a target endorsed by last year’s African Union summit — but that at least ten per cent of research spending should be dedicated to health research.

But, as science ministers are already aware, there is a large step between putting forward a wish list and ensuring that those who control the purse strings are prepared to listen and act. The Algiers Declaration has provided a framework within which action can occur. What is now required is the political commitment within individual African countries to turn those words into deeds.

David Dickson, Director, SciDev.Net

Link to the full Algiers Declaration [25kB]

POST-PINOCHET CHILE MARCHES ON IN S & T FUNDING

Erle Frayne Argonza

Let us continue our reflections about wonderful news that brighten up our day.

Going back to Chile, as it continues to celebrate the air of freedom beyond the Dark Age of the Pinochet regime, we have another news item concerning the boosting of S&T funding in the said emerging market.

Chile is proving itself as a model of development that is worth watching. See what’s going on in this exemplar country through its S&T prioritization as indicated by funds boosting.

Happy reading!

[23 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to the SciDev database news.]

 

Chile crea un fondo para becas en ciencia y tecnología

Paula Leighton

25 may 2008 | ES

La presidenta Michelle Bachelet durante su cuenta anual al país

Presidencia de la República de Chile

[SANTIAGO] Aumento en las becas para estudios de posgrado, fondos para equipamiento científico e incentivos para atraer a investigadores extranjeros son algunos de los anuncios que hizo la presidenta de Chile, Michelle Bachelet, en su cuenta pública anual (21 de mayo).

La mandataria destacó que su gobierno creará un fondo con US$6 mil millones para financiar un ambicioso programa de becas de posgrado y de formación en oficios tecnológicos de alta especialización, tanto en Chile como en el extranjero.

Dicho fondo permitirá que las mil becas de formación en universidades extranjeras destinadas para 2008 aumenten a 2.500 en 2009 y a 6.500 en 2012, anunció Bachelet.

Además, el próximo año 150 técnicos que se desempeñen en áreas prioritarias para el país accederán por primera vez a becas de perfeccionamiento en el extranjero, las que en 2010 aumentarán a 2.000.

Bachelet dijo que en 2009 también aumentarán las becas para maestrías y doctorados que se dictan en Chile y se entregarán 35 mil becas para estudios técnicos superiores. 

Otro anuncio fue un programa para atraer en dos años a al menos 100 científicos extranjeros, los que se desempeñarán en universidades regionales “en áreas donde aún no contamos con suficientes expertos nacionales”, señaló.

“Todos estos anuncios que contribuyen a que en Chile haya personas con mayor formación son muy bienvenidos, porque le dan valor agregado al país. Al mismo tiempo, es muy positivo que científicos extranjeros vengan y contribuyan a formar estudiantes y nuevos investigadores”, dijo a SciDev.Net Servet Martínez, presidente de la Academia Chilena de Ciencias.    

Para fortalecer los centros de investigación científica, Bachelet anunció también que  “durante los próximos dos años estableceremos un programa de equipamiento científico al que destinaremos US$30 millones”.

Finalmente, la mandataria se comprometió a entregar en 2009 treinta mil computadores de uso personal a escolares pobres académicamente destacados, implementar laboratorios móviles de computación para niños de educación primaria y apoyar la conectividad digital en 35 comunas del país.

Texto completo del mensaje presidencial de Michelle Bachelet

BOOSTING INNOVATIONS BY COSTA RICA

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang umaga! Good morning!

We’ve known Costa Rica all along as a peace-advocating country. As an exemplar of peace-keeping, it abolished its national army and confines peace & order functions to its domestic police.

Here is a welcome news about innovations being boosted in the peace-keeping nation. Our developing countries should better look up to Costa Rica for this combination of peace-sustenance with innovations and should study following the ‘Costa Rica way’.

Happy reading.

[23 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to the SciDev database/news.]

Noticias

Costa Rica: ¿cómo subirse al tren de la innovación?

Alejandra Vargas

25 may 2008 | ES

Oscar Arias, presidente de Costa Rica, durante la presentación del documento

Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología

[SAN JOSE] A pesar de que en Costa Rica hay dinero, personal capacitado y recursos tecnológicos suficientes para innovar, su índice en este campo es de los más bajos de América Latina.

Teniendo en cuenta este escenario, ocho expertos del país prepararan el llamado Atlas para la Innovación en Costa Rica, para hacer un diagnóstico de la situación. El reporte –lanzado este mes (6 de mayo) y sometido durante todo este mes a consulta popular– reveló errores y retos que le esperan a Costa Rica, si quiere subirse al tren del desarrollo.

El reporte señala que los recursos existentes para la innovación en Costa Rica son dispersos, intermitentes, rígidos e insuficientes.

Según el documento, el país carece de una cuantificación adecuada del gasto y la inversión que requiere para implementar la innovación. Esta indefinición impide diseñar y aplicar efectivamente los incentivos financieros, fiscales, legales y ambientales para promover el proceso.  

Para erradicar estas faltas, el Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (Micit) propuso, en la ceremonia de lanzamiento del reporte,la creación de una Comisión para la Innovación, que justamente pueda evaluar aún mejor qué es lo sucede en el país y el mundo y cuya misión sea proponer ideas claras para que los políticos tomen decisiones ágilmente.

Esa comisión decidirá cómo y dónde se encaminan los esfuerzos y el dinero y creará un marco regulado de incentivos que fomentará la creación de empresas financiadas por capital de riesgo.

El Atlas para la innovación también apuesta por la creación de más incubadoras de empresas y sugiere la formación de asesores y gestores para la agilización de los procesos de innovación en pequeñas y medianas entidades.

Esto tiene como objetivo que exista un acompañamiento real de las PYMES hasta ver resultados en el mercado mundial.

“Costa Rica es aún un país con un bajo esfuerzo en innovación tecnológica, lo que nos obliga a impulsar un cambio profundo. Es preciso reorganizar un sistema de ciencia y tecnología que debe evolucionar en el tiempo, que debe ser ágil, flexible y ajustable a los cambios de entorno”, dijo Eugenia Flores, jerarca del Micit, durante la presentación del documento.

“En los últimos 25 años, del aumento total de la producción mundial, el 88 por ciento proviene de mejoras en las tecnologías y solo el 12 por ciento proviene de la expansión de los sistemas de producción vigentes. Esto encierra una advertencia que no podemos ignorar: o nos involucramos, todos, en el proceso de potenciar la innovación en Costa Rica, o nuestro país será cada vez menos competitivo”, sentenció Oscar Arias, presidente de Costa Rica, en la ceremonia.

Para Gabriel Macaya, director de la Academia Nacional de Ciencia, “la innovación es un tema que nos encontramos en muchas propuestas y análisis que ya se han hecho en el país. Espero que se den los medios para que los sectores involucrados comiencen a trabajar y avancemos.”

Enlace al documento completo 

GM COMMERCIALIZATION UPDATE IN EGYPT

Erle Frayne Argonza

 

Magandang araw! Good day!

 

From the Land of the Pharoahs comes a welcome news about genetically-modified crops. It has got to do with the commercialization of a Bt maize variety, a pattern that has already taken off in the Philippines.

 

The contentious issue here concerns the entry of Monsanto, the agri giant, in the control over the patent of the food variety. Let the Eqyptians deal with the matter themselves, but for now I am of the opinion that the corn variety is a good news altogether for our fellows in the great Land of the Pharoahs.

 

Let Isis make us dance with delight over this welcome news!

 

[22 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to the SciDev news summaries.]

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Egypt approves commercialisation of first GM crop

Wagdy Sawahel

13 May 2008 | EN

Flickr/simpologist

[CAIRO] Egypt has approved the cultivation and commercialisation of a Bt maize variety, marking the first legal introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops into the country.

A report last month (16 April) from the US Department of Agriculture, noted that the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture had “approved decisions made by the National Biosafety Committee and Seed Registration Committee to allow for commercialisation of a genetically modified Bt corn variety”.

The endorsement was based on a series of field trials conducted between 2002 and 2007 for the variety MON 810, produced by biotechnology company Monsanto. Bt crops produce a toxin that guards against pests.

The variety to be distributed, Ajeeb-YG, is a cross between MON 810 and an Egyptian maize variety with resistance to three corn borer pests, developed by Monsanto scientists in South Africa — currently the only African country planting GM crops commercially.

Cairo-based company Fine Seeds International is partnering with Monsanto to distribute the variety in Egypt.

Ahmad Yaseen, an agricultural engineer at Fine Seeds, says the seeds will be available this month to farmers in ten Egyptian governorates.

Yaseen said the seeds will initially be imported from South Africa, but “starting from next year, Ajeeb-YG will be produced in Egypt”.

Amr Farouk Abdelkhalik, an Egyptian biotechnologist and regional coordinator of the Agricultural Biotechnology Network in Africa, says the new variety “points to the potential agronomic and environmental benefits of Bt maize in Egyptian cropping systems and accordingly the reduction of the massive use of pesticides”.

“We should develop our own GM plants using our genes and technology to protect small-scale farmers,” he added.

Magdi Tawfik Abdelhamid, a plant biotechnologist at the National Research Centre in Cairo, expressed concerns about the long-term effects of the crop.

He says research on the issues surrounding GM crops “must be conducted in Egypt, and an in-depth assessment must be carried out to examine the impact of GM plants on small-scale farmers”.

Egypt currently has no official biosafety legislation, though a regulatory framework exists. Hisham El-Shishtawy from the National Biosafety Committee secretariat told SciDev.Net that the existing framework follows the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and encompasses ministerial decrees regulating the registration of GM seeds. 

PHILIPPINE DEVELOPMENT MOVES AHEAD TOWARDS MATURITY

Bro. Erle Frayne D. Argonza

[Writ 11 April 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Most recently, Philippine economic growth reached impressive levels of 7.3% GDP and 8.4% GNP. GNP is measured by adding the Net Factor Income from Abroad or NFIA,  comprising largely of remittances from overseas workers and overseas investments. There is surely cause for elation over these developments.

How far has Philippine development progressed? Quite far, to say the least. In 1946, when the USA granted independence on this ‘far-east’ colony, the Philippines was a backward, agrarian economy that was dependent on manufacturing imports to move on. It was also coming out of its war-torn phase, and had to embark on an ambitious recovery program first as part of its development program.

Today that post-colonial past is now a distant epoch of a long by-gone time. The work-force is dominated by the services sector which also contributes to 55% of the GDP, while industry contributes 30% more or less though a measly 16% of the work-force. Agriculture itself had quite modernized, though it now contributes to just around 15% of GDP and 36% of the work-force.

Urban population had already surpassed the 55% mark by the middle of this decades and is still surging ahead as urbanization makes radical, sweeping changes over vast expanses of rural villages and small towns. Manila, the primate city, is as huge as a mega-polis, contributes 1/3 to the national output and is now a highly reputable 1^st World city. Philippine investments have been moving out of the country as part of wealth production overseas, aside from overseas labor, and in long run remittances from investments will exceed those from manpower. The domestic banking sector is so awash with cash, that it can fund the most ambitious development projects conceivable, thus cutting off RP’s dependence on foreign debts.

But RP still has a long way to go before reaching a 1^st World status. Using the industry cycle—where an industry progresses from ‘take-off’, to ‘growth’ stage, then to ‘maturity’ stage, then to ‘overdeveloped’ or ‘decay’ stage—experts can easily assess that RP is already at the tail end of the ‘growth stage’. It took so long a time for this to happen, as this stage began in the 1970s yet. The ‘take-off’stage likewise took so long a time to conclude, as it started in 1948 yet, more or less, got bogged down for some time in the 1960s, before moving on to the next phase during the technocratic-militaristic order of the 1970s.

But RP had already moved forward, this had to be recognized most of all. It is now a 2^nd World economy, still an ‘emerging market’ though already no longer the backward/agrarian ‘carabao economy’ that it used to be, and no longer rural but predominantly urban. And this news is sufficient cause for euphoric jubilation.

If only the late economist & sociologist Joseph Schumpeter were still alive today, the Philippine experience would make him happy. RP authenticates well his theory of cycles, particularly the long-wave Kondratieff cycle. This cycle contends that long-period growth takes place over a period of 55-60 years, with expansion at the beginning half and contraction at the last half.

RP began its ‘take-off’ in 1946 (alongside the war recovery), and the long-cycle period officially ended in December 2006. Using this theory then, I forecast as early as 1999 yet that RP will experience another period of long-term growth beginning in 2007, and I hit the mark so precisely that I am sure the theory of cycles is as valid as ever. Discounting aside the possible effects of external shocks that we have no control over, our long-term expansion will be till 2036.

Which means that RP will reach ‘maturity’ very soon, around 2015, and then attain ‘over-developed’ or 1^st world status by the period 2025-2030. No matter how slow the carabao (water buffalo) may work, it will still deliver results. And RP, which is justly signified by the carabao, had demonstrated this to the world.