Sciences and technologies
July 2002 is an important date in the history of cooperation between the ACP and EU in the field of research and development (R&D), a cooperation still in its infancy at the time. It was then that the two parties met in Cape Town, on the initiative of the ACP Secretariat and the European Commission, and agreed to lay down the foundations of a genuine partnership in the fields of science and technology. At the meeting, ACP science ministers adopted a declaration that formally pledged to review their R&D budgets, with plans to increase them to at least 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) within a decade. The declaration also stressed the importance of pursuing programmes that would allow the ACP States to participate effectively in the global economy while still maintaining their intellectual property rights, traditional know-how and biodiversity.
Hospital complex in Bujumbura, Burundi 2007
© Joshua Massarenti
Reducing the technology gap
The undertaking given in South Africa’s capital is important in that it implies possibly difficult changes in terms of policy as well as of investment. It is based on the belief – also expressed in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – that reducing the technology gap between north and south is a major factor in resolving the problem of the widening socio-economic divide between rich and poor nations. Certainly, there is no disputing the figures: the world’s industrialised countries currently invest about 2.5% of their GDP in R&D, while most developing countries invest less than 0.5%. Furthermore, at the Barcelona summit in 2002, the EU pledged to increase its R&D investments from 2.2% to 3% of gross national income by 2010, two-thirds of which should be financed by the private sector.
R&D has become an established feature of new strategies developed by the EU in the field of cooperation. This is clearly illustrated by the new EU-Africa partnership recently adopted at the Lisbon Summit in December 2007 which gives a major role to research, particularly in the fields of agriculture and food security, and information and communication technology. In the past, the EU’s approach to R&D was to give priority to a vertical involvement within a specific programme (namely INCO on international cooperation). It also funded sub-regional agricultural research organisations in Africa (through the EDF) as well as agricultural research programmes under the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), financed out of the Food Security budget. The new Seventh R&D Framework Programme (FP7) (2007–2013) has adopted a horizontal approach that includes specific mechanisms to enable developing countries to participate based on their real needs. This last development is important, as it was only possible to pay out €80 million of the €285 million foreseen in the INCO programme under the FP6 agreement (2002–2006).
The Cape Town Declaration has, however, not lacked constructive follow-up. In May 2003 the ACP-EU Council approved this new approach and decided to allocate an EDF grant of €30 million to strengthen the science and technology capacities in the ACP countries (see below).
Aids, malaria, tuberculosis: the clinical counter-offensive
In 2001, in partnership with scientists and health officials in the most affected countries, the EU launched a major clinical research programme to halt the progress of three transmissible pandemics that were ravaging sub-Saharan Africa. The EDCTP (European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Programme on poverty-related diseases) project aims to increase and coordinate clinical trials using new vaccines and forms of treatment in the fight against Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. The EU contributed €200 million to implementing the EDCTP initiative in addition to national and international funds.
The challenge is formidable as each pandemic adopts different forms and poses problems of diagnosis, treatment and prevention which are also dependent on specific local conditions, both geographic and social. For example, plasmodium falciparum, which is present across the whole of Africa, is a very severe form of malaria that is proving increasingly resistant to known anti-malaria medicines and is responsible for an ever-growing mortality rate among newborns and pregnant women. To counter this it is necessary to test new combinations of treatment and to try possible new vaccines, and at the same time develop new generations of protection based on insecticides. In the case of Aids, the genetic diversity of the HIV virus in Africa poses a major problem, as the use of complex forms of preventative or therapeutic vaccines that are the subject of intense research in the developed countries are, at present, unrealistic for Africa. Research and clinical trials therefore focus on forms of prevention/treatment/vaccination that are adapted to the supply and consumption capacities of the poor countries. Finally, in the face of the resurgence of a particularly acute and multi-resistant form of tuberculosis, there is not only a lack of new medicines but also of the research to develop them in the first place.
Edulink, the first ACP-EU cooperation programme
Cooperation between ACP and EU scientists will be further strengthened following the launch of the Edulink programme in 2006. This is the first cooperation programme in the field of higher education with the ACP regions, which is open to all ACP States and the 15 EU Member States that are signatories to the 9th EDF (2001–2007). Its aim is to strengthen institutional and academic competences – in particular by improving the excellence of teaching, consolidating local research capacity, and importing and adapting scientific innovations. Additionally, it seeks to improve the regional integration of higher education in the ACP countries by setting up institutional networks. The programme was the subject of three calls for tender during the 2006–2008 period for a total amount of €30.5 million and will fund projects submitted by at least three higher education establishments from at least two different ACP States. It is not obligatory for European universities to participate, but they are ‘welcome’. (www.acp-edulink.eu)
Academies in search of networks and capacity
If the ACP universities and research centres are to survive and flourish there is not only a need for increased cooperation with their European counterparts but also for more links between the ACP research organisations themselves. It was with this in mind that in 2001, 13 African scientific institutions formed the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC)* to strengthen cooperation between the African Union (AU) and the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) .The ultimate aim was to represent the 53 AU Member States. The network seeks to enable African scientists to find project partners more effectively and to join European research consortiums, particularly those eligible for financing under the EU’s framework programme for R&D. For many universities in developing countries with diminished resources, this is far from easy.
* Members of the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) include the African Academy of Sciences, Cameroon Academy of Sciences, Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Kenya National Academy of Sciences, Académie Nationale Malgache, Nigerian Academy of Sciences, Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal, Uganda National Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Science of South Africa.
