17 Mar 2016

Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) are critical growth engines of wealth creation, for improvements of wealth and progression of social systems in economies.

This was said by the Minister of Infrastructure, Science and Technology, Mr Nonofo Molefhi, when delivering a keynote address at the African Research Organisations Stakeholders Forum themed: Transferring knowledge into solutions: The role of research organisations yesterday. 

The scientific community, Mr Molefhi said, should take note that the position STI held in national development frameworks was an indication of the pioritisation and emphasis that countries placed on the role of STI in development.  

In today’s globalised world, the minister said generating new knowledge and turning it into new products and services was crucial to maintaining and enhancing a country’s competitiveness. 

For that reason, he said the government has also taken stock of its science and innovation landscape, and “we are making major changes that we believe will catapult Botswana forward.”

In 2014, he said the country’s Science and Technology Policy was revised with a detailed implementation plan and budget for funding of the different activities in STI.

He encouraged participants to remain committed to focusing their research on tackling the big challenges that were facing the African continent, such as energy and water scarcity, climate change, poverty and food security.

“Cooperation in these areas should help us to get to creating new knowledge and developing solutions much faster,” he said. 

Science leaders and scientists should also do more to engage with policy makers and provide them with convincing evidence that their research outcomes could be used to transform lives, he added.

Africans, Minister Molefhi said, should be proud of their African heritage and experiences, and should strengthen scientific and cultural exchanges and interactions for mutual learning, and to advance common progress and ensure sustained growth of African cooperation from generation to generation.

“You should remain committed to mutually enriching scientific and cultural exchanges. Diversity is important and much as we are similar, we still are very different as African countries,” he added.

For that reason, he said, there was also need to do more to foster research industry collaboration for mutual understanding and evidence-based decision-making within and across countries. 

“Concrete actions to achieve this, such as establishing new platforms for collaborative research with industry must become a real focus,” he said.

The government, he said, would do its part to implement the recommendations of the forum, by stepping up mutually beneficial cooperation with African countries “and would like to tackle head on bottleneck issues holding back Africa’s development, such as inadequate infrastructure, lack of professional and skilled personnel and shortage of funding.” Ends