Africa-Press – Botswana. The future of Africa’s agriculture centres around the power and value of science, technology and innovation to optimise productivity, says Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) Vice Chancellor, Professor Ketlhatlogile Mosepele.
Speaking at the pre-launch of the 21st Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) annual general meeting and conference scheduled for Gaborone, December, Prof. Mosepele said coordinated and integrated technology and innovation systems were needed to enhance transformation of the region’s Agri-food systems. He said science should be the bedrock of Agri-food systems, while technology and innovation should be operational philosophy.
“This is the only solution to ensure that Africa achieves food and nutrition security. Untenable climatic conditions and poor soils should not be barriers for food production in Africa. These should rather be opportunities to leverage on technology and innovation in our quest to optimise food production,’ Prof Mosepele said.
He said coordinated as well as intergrated technology and innovation systems would allow Africa to cost-leverage, leap-frog learning and succeed in sowing the seeds of co-creation for a sustainable Africa. He said a concerted and collective effort would unlock opportunities for growth through co-imagination, innovation and enterprise. Prof. Mosepele challenged Africa’s higher education sector and its development partners to be intentional in designing disruptive measures that would create and unlock new opportunities.
“We should recognise that Agri-food system transformation and development cuts across science, technology and innovation,” he said, adding that these issues should be part of the key actions prioritised and resourced for.
The theme for the 21st RUFORUM AGM is: Positioning Africa’s Universities and the Higher Education Sector to Effectively Impact Development Processes on the Continent.
Minister of Higher Education Mr Prince Maele said the theme presents an important opportunity for ensuring that African universities continue to grow, innovate and intensify their impact. Mr Maele also said the theme, by extension cements the importance of higher education and agriculture to ensure equal opportunities to access quality higher education.
“Africa is the youngest continent in the world, with 60 per cent of the population less than 25 years old and more than a third being between 15 and 34 years old. This demographic dividend call for concerted efforts in how we design and implement education and development investments,” Mr Maele said.
Moreover, Minister Maele said modern economic growth and development of nations had always depended on the vibrancy of its educational sector to supply the human capital, particularly science, technology and innovation to harness its natural and intellectual resources; as well as trade, to unlock economic opportunity. He, therefore, said universities being the hinge of human capital development, as well as science, technology and innovation, have a big role to play in Botswana and Africa’s development processes and practices.
He said government, through its universities, had endeavoured to establish research-intensive institutions that provided science solutions to support economic diversification, the establishment of new economic growth trajectory, and the resilience of communities and the economy as a whole.
Furthermore, Mr Maele commended RUFORUM for implementing transformative education approaches that integrated teaching, learning, and research for development in the industry, as well as linking higher education to policy, by mobilising financial resources for its members, supporting student and staff mobility and providing strategic skilling to the next generation of scientists and academia through its networking and coordination efforts.
As part of the pre-AGM events, RUFORUM will conduct a number of skilling events for key gap areas in science, technology and innovation, co-creation of partnerships, review of ongoing actions for benchmarking and lesson learnings. These actions, Minister Maele said were key to an integrated approach to higher education transformation.
Minister Maele urged the academia, innovation system actors and the industry to work together in co-creating new solutions that would provide the tools, methodologies and investments needed for building work-ready human capital, innovations, evidenced-based policies and investments needed to transform economies and unlock opportunity for the continent.
RUFORUM was created in 2004 by 10 vice chancellors of universities in Africa. To date the network has grown to 175 universities across 40 countries in the five regions of eastern, southern, central, west, and north Africa. The network collaborates globally with other university networks, development partners, policymakers, and leaders to leverage synergies and work towards shared objectives in delivering science solutions for human capital development and institutional reform in the African Higher Agricultural Education system.
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