20/04/09

Spend some African health money on science, says physicist

Some of the funds for primary education would be better spent on building a science community, says Turok Copyright: Flickrmaria salamanca

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Spend some African health money on science, says physicist</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><span>Governments are following the wrong policies when donating money to Africa and should focus on developing their science, technology and higher education capabilities, according to the founder of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). </span></p>
<p><span>Neil Turok, chair of mathematical physics at the UK’s Cambridge University, said: "If Africa doesn’t have its own scientific and technological community there is no way in which it can ever be an equal partner in the economy of the world.</span></p>
<p><span>"It’s through the bright people in Africa, the very able people, and allowing those people to thrive within Africa that we can help the continent to turn its fortunes around."</span></p>
<p><span>Turok founded AIMS six years ago to bring the continent’s most promising postgraduates together into an "intellectual hothouse" environment where, over the course of ten months, they are groomed for research and teaching careers in science as well as for government and industry.</span></p>
<p><span>Since its inception AIMS has produced 210 young African graduates from 30 countries across the continent — who have all since gone on to do masters degrees and PhDs.</span></p>
<p><span>He says he is now negotiating with the Senegalese government about starting a similar institute there. </span></p>
<p><span>He called for "a fraction of a per cent" of African aid to be invested in creating skilled people and establishing AIMS-style high-level institutes across the continent.</span></p>
<p><span>"To fully endow one AIMS centre forever costs ten million dollars; to create three of these centres every year would be 30 million dollars — that’s 0.1 per cent of the aid budget currently being given to Africa." </span></p>
<div><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002nrk1">Link to full audio interview</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7998169.stm">Link to <em>BBC Online</em> news story</a></div>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/spend-some-african-health-money-on-science-says-ph-1/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/news/spend-some-african-health-money-on-science-says-ph-1/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Governments are following the wrong policies when donating money to Africa and should focus on developing their science, technology and higher education capabilities, according to the founder of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS).

Neil Turok, chair of mathematical physics at the UK’s Cambridge University, said: "If Africa doesn’t have its own scientific and technological community there is no way in which it can ever be an equal partner in the economy of the world.

"It’s through the bright people in Africa, the very able people, and allowing those people to thrive within Africa that we can help the continent to turn its fortunes around."

Turok founded AIMS six years ago to bring the continent’s most promising postgraduates together into an "intellectual hothouse" environment where, over the course of ten months, they are groomed for research and teaching careers in science as well as for government and industry.

Since its inception AIMS has produced 210 young African graduates from 30 countries across the continent — who have all since gone on to do masters degrees and PhDs.

He says he is now negotiating with the Senegalese government about starting a similar institute there.

He called for "a fraction of a per cent" of African aid to be invested in creating skilled people and establishing AIMS-style high-level institutes across the continent.

"To fully endow one AIMS centre forever costs ten million dollars; to create three of these centres every year would be 30 million dollars — that’s 0.1 per cent of the aid budget currently being given to Africa."

Link to full audio interview

Link to BBC Online news story