"Africa can't afford to miss opportunities of ST for sustainable development" :K.Y. Amoako

Addis Ababa, April 11(ENA)-- Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) K.Y Amoako says harnessing of Science and Technology (ST) is key to facilitating the transition of Africa to sustainable development.

He said technology holds potential answers to address the hurdles to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

The Executive Secretary was speaking at the 5th Annual Peter Doherty Distinguished Lecture under the tittle "Harnessing Technologies for Sustainable Development in Africa" on the premises of the International Livestock Research Institute on Thursday.

He said, "Sustainability is a direct function of institutional development, human and physical capital accumulation as well as productivity".

Amoako noted that most African countries fell into cluster of low sustainability between 1995 and 2000 due to large number of population increase accompanied by the deterioration of economic, institutional and environmental management.

The United Nations Development Program technology achievement index that evaluated technology creation and diffusion as well as human skills harnessing technology indicated that 46 African countries were dubbed ''below marginalized''.

Amoako said Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Tunisia emerged at the top five by an average sustainability scores, while Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Chad and Burkina Faso were at the bottom.

He said, poor health and agricultural performance, problem of food security and human capital development were some of the daunting challenges that confront Africa.

Africa's agriculture failed to keep pace with human population growth, depending on import for 25 percent of its food gain requirements.

Speaking on the health situation of Africa, Amoako said HIV/AIDS was causing havoc, changing the demographic profile in many African countries particularly those to South of the Sahara .

He said,"There are credible estimate that the economies of the region could be devastated by 10 million AIDS deaths in the next 15 years".

He underscored those modern technologies that directely related to solving Africa's most critical problems were biotechnology for improving health provisions and agricultural development.

The main beneficiaries of current biotechnology revolution were developed countries who have nothing like food security and health problems that face Africa.

The United States, Canada and Europe account for about 97 percent of global biotechnology revenues. In the last six years, the areas planted with transgenic crops in developing countries grew from 1.2 million hectares to 14 million hectares.

However, South Africa was the only African country of the seven developing countries that planted transgenic crops as of 2001.

Pursuing biotechnology revolution was paramount importance to develop agricultural products through the employment of organisms for plant and animal breeding, fermentation, pest control and preservation of products.

Speaking about ICT Amoako said the absence of information and information technology correlates directly with the world's highest instance of poverty which has been the case of Africa.

He said information would also help in streamlining the delivery of public service, improving internal management and increasing citizen participation in public forums.

He said in pursuit of the sustainable development for Africa international partners have an indispensable role to play so that the continent would not miss the opportunities that science and technology has been offering to MDG.

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