Report | Amoako's Introductory Speech

Addis Ababa, 9-12 February 1998
OPENING SPEECH
K.Y. AMOAKO
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this inaugural meeting of experts invited to make a contribution to the efforts of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, by helping bring Science and technology (S&T) to bear on the Food Security and Sustainable Development of Africa. On behalf of the Executive Secretary of this commission, I wish to thank you for honouring our invitation in spite of your very busy schedules.

The pivotal role of S&T in the competitive position of enterprises and nations is yet to be appreciated in Africa. Africa’s rich resource base is not a viable panacea to its competitive weakness. Competitive advantage today and in the future is knowledge rather than resource-determined. Firms and nations create and sustain their competitive advantage by continuous innovation. Firms or nations that ignore or stop innovating also fail to keep their standard of living, and lose their competitive position in the global market place.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

As you are well aware, Africa is the only continent where per capita food production has been stagnating or declining in the last three decades. This poor trend has been further compounded by a population growth rate that exceeds food production. Worse still, the food problem and the population pressure have led to an alarming rate of environmental degradation as a result of soil erosion, wide-spread depletion of soil nutrients and deforestation. This links food security with population and environmental sustainability in what has been called the "nexus". Certainly, no cluster of issues has eluded effective public policy in Africa as much as those of the nexus. S&T has been recognized as a cross-cutting tool that has been brought to bear on these nexus issues in Asia, Latin America and some parts of Africa.

Science and technology cannot exist in a vacuum. They are utilized to sustain competitive positions in the production of goods and services. Those who wish to profit by S&T activities must be shrewd niche players because progress can only be made on a few fronts. However, there must be synergy between the S&T activities and the niches chosen and other economic policies pursued. The location of S&T within the Food Security and sustainable development division agrees with this niche idea. It means that ECA will focus its S&T activities on issues relating to food security achievement through agricultural, demographic and environmental transitions. It is important for ECA to be guided by experts in order to ensure that S&T play this catalytic role.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There is a global trend towards less government involvement with directly productive activities, the commercialization and privatization of public sector activities, the increasing reliance on market forces in the allocation of investible resources. This trend changes the mode of government intervention in economies and therefore, creates the need to seek innovative mechanisms for bringing about the desired results. S&T policy intervention must reflect this market orientation in order for it to be successful. With the shift in the World Economic Order away from central planning, state ownership of productive enterprises, and the greater reliance on market forces for the allocation of development resources, ECA must seek innovative ways of influencing the private sector of member countries in order for S&T to affect directly productive activities.

For over a decade the main focus of the ECA’s S&T has been in three areas, namely:

increasing the awareness of member States on the applications of science and technology in socio- economic development;
strengthening policies and institutions in science and technology by developing and mobilizing endogenous human resources in the field; and
co-ordination, collaboration, harmonization and international co-operation among member States, other UN agencies, IGOs, NGOs and with bilateral and multilateral donors

ECA pursued these objectives by a combination of activities. It performs its co-ordination and harmonization functions by bringing together national decision-makers in meetings and seminars. It provides advisory services to member States through missions. It conducts research and policy analysis; collects data, publishes reports, disseminates documents and provides training through workshops.

A recent review of the S&T programme of ECA revealed that it did not make the desired impact on the economies of member States for a number of reasons. The most important of these reasons was that the S&T activities were divorced from the mainstream of national economic activities.

During the biennium 1998-1999, ECA intends to concentrate its S&T on food security achievement through three transitions: the transition from low to high-performing agriculture; from high to low population growth rate; and from environmental degradation to environmental conservation. Accordingly, the current objectives of the S&T programme in ECA are:

to foster member States awareness and commitment to applying S&T
 in tackling the nexus issues; and to encourage them to adopt policies

 that ensure the proper development and application of 

With the target audience being development planners, policy-makers and representatives of stakeholders from the private sector, ECA wishes to achieve these objectives through a number of activities. These will include: conduct of studies; formulation of appropriate policies and strategies; elaboration of plans of action; advisory services; networking; organization of executive dialogues, conferences and the backstopping of ECA-sponsored institutions as you will see from other background papers. There will be the pursuit of synergy between food security and sustainable development on the one hand, and the application of appropriate S&T to these issues, on the other hand. It has been felt that the achievement of these objectives will be greatly facilitated if ECA could draw on high level expertise mainly from Africa, and complemented by world class experts from outside the continent.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I am happy to say that we are looking up to you for the critical advises that will help us carry out the new role that we expect S&T to play. In particular, the objectives of the expert group are:

to advise ECA on how to strengthen the link between science and technology activities and
the achievement of food security and sustainable development and to present examples of success cases from your countries illustrating how science and technology has contributed to the agricultural, and/or demographic and/or environmental transition; andto launch the ECA’s S&T network for Africa

I have no doubt that you will rise up to this great challenge and help us in ECA to make a contribution to the extrication of our continent from the stranglehold of poverty, disease, and malnutrition.

Before I end this key note address, permit me to underscore the appreciation of ECA for the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation of New York whose grant has made your meeting possible.

I wish you very fruitful deliberations and a very exciting time in Addis Ababa. Thank you.

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