Africa has been grappling with the question of human and social development for a long time. Africa’s awareness and concerns about its relative levels of economic, technological and social development sharpened following the continent’s tragic encounter with an increasingly imperial and industrializing Europe from the fifteenth century. This encounter made the question of modernity and modernization an urgent practical and intellectual question. The themes of “African regeneration” or “African renaissance” have engaged African intellectuals since the middle of the nineteenth century. In practical terms, African development and modernization have been seen in terms of continental societies acquiring scientific and technological tools to improve the human condition and social development, and to bring Africa into global prominence and parity.
This quest for modernity and development, one that was at once global and distinctly African, intensified during the twentieth century, a period marked, within Africa by colonialism, decolonization, and independence, and across the world by imperialism, ideological rivalries and globalization. At the center of this quest were education, science, and technology seen as vehicles for intellectual enlightenment, social engineering, cultural production, political participation, and above all, economic and social development. Thus, education and science as processes and projects through which social, cultural, technological, and economic capital is acquired and reproduced, and the nation and the world are productively imagined, has dominated African discourses about development, nationalism, and globalization for a long time.
Ultimately, Africa’s search for human and social development, for modernity, revolves around the question of developing, to quote Abiola Irele (1999: 7-8) “a workable and effective social and political organization of our national communities, and the productive management of our physical environment and material resources, all this in a world dominated by ‘instrumental reason’ and controlled from ever fewer centers of power and decision.” This project poses challenges that are simultaneously political and philosophical, concrete and conceptual, about renewal in economic and epistemic terms and of social and structural conditions, about the development and democratization of African institutions in a world that rewards technological and scientific progress and punishes those lagging behind.
These questions have demanded serious reflections among African thinkers and policy makers. The eminent Kenyan scholar, Ali Mazrui (1999) contends: “Modernization is change which is compatible with the present state of human knowledge, which seeks to comprehend the legacy of the past, which is sensitive to the needs of the future, and which is increasingly aware of its global context.” In his formulation, modernization minus dependency equals development. He argues that African modernization needs three major revolutions in skills, values, and gender relations. In an increasingly knowledge based global economy, the power of skills is self-evident. Skills often need science and technology at different levels. Science and technology, in turn, are conditioned by culture. He also suggests several strategies for reducing and transcending dependency. Among them are indigenization, domestication, and diversification. Indigenization requires greater utilization of indigenous techniques, personnel, and approaches for purposeful change, while domestication involves making imported institutions more relevant to Africa in their organization and functions. As for diversification, he recommends that Africa must diversify the foreign cultures from which it seeks to learn and stop its “excessive reliance on the West as the only Other.”
One of the distinguishing characteristics of science is its systematicity in terms of how it describes and explains phenomena, establishes knowledge claims, and expands and represents knowledge. But this very systematicity sometimes leads to extravagant neo-positivist claims about sciences’ explanatory and predictive power, which post-positivists, especially postmodernists, with their anti-foundationalist and constructionist views have done much to debunk (Galavotti 2000). While these critiques are pertinent, we must be careful not to throw the baby with the bathwater. Irele (1999: 7-8) insists that while we indeed have to recognize the limits of science, there is no reason to jettison its real triumphs and the keys it holds for “advancing our interests in the modern world….”
Science is ultimately a social and political enterprise. It needs political will for funding and structured support, effective regulation and application, which entails, in turn, that it must respond to the needs of society, find practical solutions to pressing problems and the inspired innovations to realize society’s collective dreams of the future. As Frederico Mayor (2000: 26-7), then UNESCO Secretary-General put it at the opening of the World Conference on Science in June 1999, “science is too important to be left to the markets.” Public support for science is particularly critical with the rapid expansion of proprietary science that is spreading as private profit seeking corporations assume a greater share of scientific research.
If Africa is to become an important producer, not just consumer, of scientific products massively increased investment in basic or fundamental science is imperative, for there are no technological products—applied science—without basic science. Ever since the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, the links between science and technology have become ever more intimate: There has hardly been any significant technological advancement since the beginning of the twentieth century that has not been the byproduct of scientific research. The relationship between science and technology is of course not unilinear; there are multiple feedback loops between the two and between them and markets and national economic and social well-being.
Science and technology are of course not a panacea for all the challenges of human and social development. Their capacities to bring progress and destruction are equally awesome, whether we consider the powers of nuclear energy, the impact of the automobile, the effects of ubiquitous information and communication technologies, or the potential of genetically modified foods and organisms, so are its capacities to influence, for better or worse, the spatial and social divides between and within countries. By itself science and technology will not solve Africa’s stubborn legacies of underdevelopment, but without them they cannot be solved. Africa’s scientific and technological literacy must be raised. In the developed world science has become a major, in some cases the leading productive force: All the talk about the new knowledge economy and knowledge society is essentially a tribute to the pervasive role of science and technology in contemporary life.
Africa’s science policy should entail both the appropriation of the existing huge stock of scientific and technological innovations that already exists, and active participation in the production of new scientific knowledge. Existing knowledge should be considered an international or global public good, and strategies need to be developed to systematically collect scientific and technical information from around the world. Acquiring research results in this manner may be cheaper than conducting the research locally, but is not a substitute. In addition to catching up on the old frontiers of science and technology, Africa must be actively engaged in the emerging scientific revolutions of our times—the gene revolution (genomics, bioinformatics, molecular breeding, diagnostics, vaccine technology, etc.), the ecotechnology revolution (in the fields of economics, ecology, equity, employment, and energy), the nanotechnology revolution (the miniaturization of physical and biological objects), and the information and communication revolution (Internet, computing, software, remote sensing, etc.). The challenges cannot be underestimated in a world where scientific knowledge is increasing so rapidly.
African countries must pursue a multi-pronged agenda: strengthen their national systems of science and technology, which depends on building strong education systems and establishing productive scientific networks with both the global South and the global North, including with their own scientific diasporas, as part of a systematic and sustainable drive to generate, import, adapt, and disseminate scientific knowledge and new technologies. Enabling conditions must be created not only for Africa’s own scientists but also to attract foreign research and development. Even in the scientifically and technologically well-endowed United States, foreign R&D has increasingly come to play an import role, rising from $700 million in 1987 to more than $17 billion in 1995, which provoked bitter debates between the techno-nationalists and techno-globalists.
Clearly, African governments have a responsibility to identify the problems, harness the progress, and explore the possibilities of science and technology in general, and of specific scientific and technology fields, such information technology and biotechnology. This can be achieved through the development of appropriate policies and integrating them in the relevant sectors, mobilizing the required investment, especially in education, and creating an enabling environment for entrepreneurship in the technology sectors. There is also need for greater coordination between governments, civil society, the intelligentsia, business, and entrepreneurs to promote the development of science and technology culture and enterprise. Particular attention needs to be paid to the mobilization of African scientists and entrepreneurs in the diaspora, who constitute a vast reservoir of scientific and technical skills, of intellectual and social capital.
As Mohamed Hassan (2003), the renowned Sudanese scientist and head of both the African Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (formerly Third World Academy of Sciences) has passionately argued, the challenges are as daunting as the opportunities are immense. There is need to develop, sustain, and utilize local capacities and leadership in efforts to advance science and technology; to mobilize the best and most relevant science and technology in Africa and establish institutional networks to address critical social and economic problems facing the continent; to establish and strengthen centers of excellence in science and technology among African universities and research institutions; to develop strong political will at national and regional levels to support science and technology; and to increase substantially expenditure on science and technology and on research and development.
African expenditures on science and technology are grossly inadequate even in comparison to other developing regions. According to UNESCO Science World Report 2005 [1] (UNESCO 2005: 4-16), in 2002 Africa accounted for a mere 0.6% of the world’s gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) and 1.1% of world researchers, which was the lowest in the world, even compared to Oceania with 1.1%. and 1.4%, respectively, let alone Latin America and the Caribbean with 2.6% and 2.5%. Asia has overtaken Europe, fueled in part by China’s explosive growth (its share of world GERD rose from 4% 1997 to 9% in 2002). In 2002 Asia accounted for 31.5% of world GERD and 36.8% of researchers compared to Europe’s 27.3%. and 33.4%, respectively. Remarkably, Africa’s share of world GERD is lower than its share of world GDP (3.7%), so that GERD as a percentage of GDP is a dismal 0.3%, compared to a world average of 1.7% (0.6% for Latin American and the Caribbean, 1.4% for Oceania, 1.5% for Asia, 1.7% for Europe, and 2.7% for North America). In actual dollars, Africa’s GERD per inhabitant is a measly $5.6, compared to a world average of $134.4 ($40.9 for Latin America and the Caribbean, $71.3 for Asia, $274.2 for Oceania, $284.6 for Europe, and $960.5 for North America).
Not surprisingly, Africa’s share of patents granted by the US Patent Office, the European Patent Office, and Japanese Patent Office in 2000 was a negligible 0.1%, the same as in 1991 (altogether the developed countries accounted for 92.9% and 92.7% of the patents granted in 1991 and 2000, respectively). A little better, but not by much, is Africa’s share of world scientific publications; it was 1.6% in 1991 and 1.4% in 2000, compared to 1.8% and 3.3% for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2.9% to 3.3% for Oceania, 16.2% to 22.5% for Asia, 43.9% to 36.2% for North America, and 41.2% to 46.1% for Europe during the same period. The low levels of scientific and technological knowledge production are reflected in Africa’s equally low share of high tech imports and exports, which in 2002 stood at 0.9% and 2.5%, respectively (compared to 1.3% and 0.3% for Oceania; 4.5% and 3.4% for Latin America and the Caribbean; 21.7% and 15.7% for North America; 36.2%35.4% and 38.6% for Europe; and 35.4% and 39.5% for Asia). Needless to say, on all these indicators there are vast differences among African countries. South Africa and Egypt tend to dominate in the numbers of researchers and scientific publications (accounting for 46% of the total in 1998; followed by Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Nigeria, in that order). In 2002, South Africa accounted for 90% of the sub-regional GERD for Sub-Saharan Africa!
It is quite clear that Africa’s science and technology expenditures and capacities lag behind the continent’s economic potential and are awfully inadequate to meet the challenges of globalization. But as Okin Adubifa (2003) has suggested rising levels of literacy, entrepreneurial activities, democratization and new wireless technologies offer new possibilities for the development of science and technology in the continent. Besides developing the capacities of the universities and research centers, African countries need to explore the full potential of industrial manufacturing as a vehicle for building scientific and technological capacity. Indeed, there is need for greater coordination between the different stakeholders—government, industry, donors, and universities—in building capacity that is relevant to local needs and is sustainable in the long-term. For this to be achieved, public awareness and advocacy about the importance of science and technology in modernizing national economies, improving national security, and participating competitively in international trade has to be promoted. Science and technology research capabilities and coordinated systems need to be developed by establishing academies of science and encouraging the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge.
Globalization, both as a process in which there are rapid flows of capital, labor, communications and culture, and the closer integration of markets and economies, and as a project of neo-liberal ideology, is transforming the importance and contexts for science and technology development. Africa finds itself particularly vulnerable in this brave new world of highly competitive global knowledge-intensive economies that are dominated by transnational corporations, which are prowling the planet for creative and skillful talent to generate new products and production processes. The considerable scientific infrastructure Africa had built by the 1970s was eroded by the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s and 1990s that devastated African universities. The continent’s access to sophisticated science and technology has also often been curtailed by racist donors who push for so-called “appropriate technology.” Africa’s development and competitiveness can no longer simply depend on its richly endowed natural resources, but on its ability to mobilize science and technology to establish new comparative advantages in the global economy.
The developmental and democratic implications of the new technologies are already quite evident. For example, the explosive growth in cellular telephones has had an empowering effect on rural farmers by improving access to market information, while the Internet has had a liberating impact for Africa’s often beleaguered journalists and information hungry masses. Africa has emerged as one of the most dynamic telecommunication markets in the world, thanks to economic liberalization, the introduction of competitive markets, and increased investment in the sector. According to the World Telecommunications/ICT Development Report [2] (ITU 2007:11) telecommunications services have grown fastest in Africa and accounted for 5% of GDP by 2004, compared to 4.5% in Oceania, 3.8% in Asia, 3.3% in Europe, and 2.9% in the Americas. Mobile phones began to outstrip fixed phones in 2000 and by 2004 there were 8.8 mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants compared to 3.1 for fixed subscribers; in 1994 the ratios had been 0.06 to 1.7, respectively.
The growth of information technology has been as spectacular as its impact is far-reaching. The information producing service and manufacturing sectors directly generate jobs and revenue. The indirect benefits include improved productivity, efficiency, information flow, and transparency. Among the services facilitated by information technology are e-commerce, teleworking, e-government, e-health (telemedicine), and e-education (e-learning). But the vast infrastructural investments required for the development of information technology often engender spatial and social inequities in terms of access between the rural and urban areas and among people of different social classes. The digital divides also have a gender dimension. In so far as technology is both socially embedded and engendered, in practice it reflects and reproduces hierarchies and inequities between men and women. In developing science and technology policies, therefore, it is important to pay attention to the intersections between gender, technology, and development,
The challenge facing Africa is not only simple to narrow or even close the digital divide with other world regions, but also the digital divides within the continent itself between and within countries and among telecommunication sectors and products—Internet use lags far behind mobile phones, for example. Also, there is need for Africa to develop both informed consumers of technology-driven products and efficient producers of information technology who contribute to the design and/or manufacturing of technology-oriented products such as software and Internet services. To do both requires, as Khaled Ismail (2003) has argued, reorienting the education system to produce graduates who specialize in technology areas. It is important that technological literacy be translated into entrepreneurship. Critical to the development of productive technological skills is the establishment of close, mutually beneficial relations between industry and academia.
There is no question that Africa cannot afford to be left behind the new scientific and technological revolutions as it was left behind during the earlier industrial revolutions. Science and technology will not make any headway without massive investments in the continent’s universities and other research infrastructures. The continent also stands to benefit from the mobilization of its scientific diaspora, from exploiting its comparative advantages in biodiversity, from the leapfrogging possibilities offered by the new information technologies, and from collaborating with countries in the global South such as China that have made scientific and technological advancement. The gap between prescription and implementation is of course filled with political calculations, struggles, and uncertainties. African leaders are known for their flowery rhetoric about the importance of science and technology for development. Often lacking is the political will to translate rhetoric into reality, for Africa to forge a new developmental paradigm and modernity for the twenty-first century, a paradigm that prizes science and technology for their instrumental value in the quest for human material fulfillment.
First Written June 15, 2007