Science And Technology Policies: The Missing Links

The 2007 annual general meeting of the Research Staff Association of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research took place in Kumasi last month. The two-day meeting was held under the theme ‘ Ghana at 50: Redefining the role of science and technology for national development’. The President of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, (GAAS) presented a paper at the forum on ‘Successive government policies on science and technology: the missing links’. The following is an abridged version of the paper:

It is a normal practice for governments to determine policies which would drive important development goals and each government is entitled to its decision.

What we learn from the successes and failures of the policies may become essential parameters for modifying, defining and formulating subsequent policies.

Let me illustrate with a policy which turned out successful and one which did not:

There used to be a Cocoa Research Institute within the CSIR but it moved out to become a research arm of the Ministry of Agriculture. Personally, I think that was a successful change for it brought research and technology within easy reach of farmers and much good has come out of it.

FISHERIES

In contrast, with Water Research, the concentration of attention, in the early nineties on commercial freshwater fisheries in order to satisfy instructions to record economic gain from research had a disastrous impact on the application of science and technology as far as the Volta Lake is concerned.

The commercial fisheries programme was successful. However, to concentrate on that, research and monitoring on the Volta Lake were completely withdrawn.

The result was that when the dangerous aquatic weed, water hyacinth, started to invade the Volta Lake it was not noticed till large sections had become covered, depriving the country of Lake water through excessive evaporation from the extensive weed-infested area and denying ready passage to fishermen’s boats and commercial ferries.

Recently, a statement by 90 of the World’s Science Academies, including the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences declared that 'No nation can afford to be without access to a credible independent science and technology research capability to help it develop informed policies'.

In the Ghana context, prior to independence, early policies formulated were against a background of colonial conditions.

At the time, the resources of the Gold Coast were completely under the control of the Colonial government. Principal policies formulated therefore had the primary objective of the exploitation of the resources for the benefit of the colonial government.

Like the other three British West African colonies, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. the Gold Coast was in an area of wealth in minerals, forests and cultivated crops

During the war years, it became a firm decision that the four colonies were to provide essential resources for the war effort.

For cultivated crops, there became established, a West African Cocoa Research Institute, an Oil Palm Research Institute and a West African Rice Research Institute. Forests were important for their timber and so, to protect them, a Research Unit on the Timber Borer was set up.

Then there were a West Africa Medical Research Institute to work against malaria and dengue, a West African Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research to control the tsetse fly and protect cattle and people from trypanosomiasis.

And, a Building Research Institute became another logical element identified in the science and technology policy at the time.

The President of the First Republic of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, had a clear vision of science and technology to be the solid foundation on which to build Ghana’s development.

Soon after independence, he laid emphasis on the production of an adequate and reliable scientific manpower for implementing science and technology programmes.

Dr. Nkrumah also wanted to assure a firm base for science and technology involvement in national development programs. And he therefore initiated a national system.

And, in order to get the history correct and on record, for the sake of those who do not know about the antecedents of the CSIR, allow me take a little time to explain and give a historical background. It would be incorrect to imagine that the CSIR was set up in October 1968.

As early as 1958, Dr. Nkrumah caused to be set up by an act of Parliament, a National Research Council (NRC) to provide a physical base for scientific research in the country. The NRC became the foundation of scientific research activities in the country.

It established its first Research Institute, The Biological Research Institute (BRI) and I was privileged to be the first research staff that the Institute recruited.

By 1963, the early research institutes of the NRC were the Cocoa Research Institute, the Building and Road Research Institute, the Crops Research Institute and the Soil Research Institute. That was the start of what has eventually become the 13 full-time Research Institutes that today constitute the CSIR.

In 1959, the President also created the Ghana Academy of Learning.

On the fourth anniversary of the Academy of Learning, the two bodies were merged under the name of Academy of Sciences.


PLANNING

The Academy of Learning had the responsibility of the overall planning and management of national scientific research, and the NRC undertook the implementation of research.

After the Military take-over of 1966 and the Cockroft Committee’s deliberations, the Academy of Sciences was separated into the original National Research Council, which became the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, (CSIR) and the Academy of Learning changed to the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS).

The CSIR therefore dates back to 1958 and to the origin of the national scientific research system which was initiated by the First President of Ghana with the establishment of the body which was known as the National Research Council (NRC), and not to a much later date in 1968 when the same body received change of name to CSIR through a further Act.

With the research institutes of the NRC, the Academy of Learning was to identify problems faced in the national development plan and develop research results and technologies to deal with them. And indeed, when the two bodies were merged as the Academy of Sciences that was what happened.

When the first seven-Year Development Plan was launched in March of 1964, the Academy (that is the two bodies) was recognised as an essential partner in its implementation.

It is said that the scale and pace of development envisaged under the Plan was such that the Academy of Sciences found it necessary to conduct a thorough appraisal of the research needs of the country.

The new Research Institutes included the Food Research Institute to investigate food storage, preservation and processing, and to promote optimum use of products from agriculture and fisheries among others.

The Institute of Aquatic Biology was approved for intensive research and monitoring of the inland water system of the country and in particular, hydro biological research to support the management of the Volta Lake which had covered 3000 sq miles of the country, displaced over 50,000 people and flooded their homes.

Fifty years later, through several changes of governments and variations in policies for managing science and technology, the Academy of Sciences has translated to a CSIR with an enormous manpower spread out in the country and undertaking research in a variety of subject areas.

So what are the missing links?

I rank a general lack of appreciation by the country and people of the unique relevance of science and technology to life, in this age, as an important missing link and I shall give some time to it later.

Generally, the ability of a country to comprehend, select, adapt and use scientific and technological knowledge is correlated with the well-being and quality of life of its people.

It has become increasingly obvious that prospects for poverty eradication in Africa will remain dim until science and technology become part of daily life and people start to use them.

Many advanced countries have achieved various levels of development through aggressive research and the application of science and technology to their economies.

Nations that value science and technology and prioritise them in their development programmes are among the richest countries in today’s world. Governments in countries such as the USA, Britain and Germany appreciate the need for research in national development and they have provided funds for it.

In Ghana however, the idea of using science and technology as an engine of socio-economic growth does not seem to have caught on. The type of science and technology development and strategic plans seen in the UK and other advanced countries do not feature adequately in Ghana’s development agenda.

However, a fundamental and major disabling factor is that, in Ghana, science seems to have been given a low rating in the assessment of decision and policy makers and politicians with the result that it generally receives low allocations from the national budget.


SUPPORT

I cannot help but think that, perhaps, if those in science and technology made what they do better understood, they would attract greater support.

As part of its concern over science issues, the Ghana Academy and others believe in the need for placing science and technology firmly in a Ministry for Science and Technology to ensure effective governance. Also, equally important, the Academy considers that a Science and Technology Commission charged with the definition, development and application of science and technology for national development would be a positive idea.

Whatever happens, the Academy believes that it is highly desirable that the country should have a Special Science Advisor to the President on Science and Technology.

My other major concern which I see as a missing link refers to the issue of developing a culture of science as part of our national identity.

Science and technology are so much an intimate part of our lives that we cannot afford to ignore them. I believe that together, those of us in the scientific community must make a greater effort to demystify science to make it comprehensible and acceptable to the non-scientific population. We have to lay science bare to have it acknowledged widely.

I believe that we in science have to convince our people that science is not magic; that it is in the being of every person.

Science, indeed is in the being of every person; the farmer tilling his land and wondering why a particular part of the land supports some crops better than another; the market woman asking herself why, and understanding how allowing flies to settle on her raw goods accelerates their rotting.

Science is understanding why gutters should not be made filthy; it is the realisation that dirty environments may have disease-causing agents; that cans collect water and assist the breeding of mosquitoes.

Science explains, in a way, our inherited tradition of washing our bodies clean, and sometimes even twice a day, to prevent the infections through disease causing organisms; why in our villages, we sweep every morning to keep our surroundings clean.

We have a responsibility to make our nation science-conscious. Without that all our talk about promoting intelligent practice of hygiene, sanitation, prevention of preventable diseases and even unnecessary deaths would mean nothing.

Until we understand science and practice it as a normal part of our daily lives, we will not succeed in controlling or getting rid of poverty.

The Ghana Academy, aware of the need for our population to know the good that comes out of scientific research and the application of various technologies to issues which affect our daily lives, organized a non-scientific Exhibition to allow research and learned institutions in Ghana to show the people of Ghana many interesting and useful down-to-earth examples of how science and technology have impacted on development in the last 50 years.

It was worth seeing, for instance, how, through science and research, the original small-pod cocoa species that Tetteh Quarshie brought has been improved to give us the high-yielding variety that has been the mainstay of Ghana’s economy for over 50 years.

If scientists can achieve from the population a transfer of a tiny percentage of the national football enthusiasm to an awareness of science and technology and their simple application in our daily lives, it would be worth the effort!



Source: Dr Letitia Obeng - newtimesonline.com ( http://www.modernghana.com)