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Review of S&T policy plans in ACP countries

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Title Review of S&T policy plans in ACP countries
 
Creator Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
 
Description Louk Box et. al. (2003) Review of Science and Technology plans in ACP countries, University of Maastricht, Maastricht.
Chapter 3.1 : S&T and the Cotonou Agreement
Under the Cotonou Agreement, ACP states can receive support for the development of S&T policies and programmes. From a review of the Country Strategy Papers (CSP), however, it appears that few ACP countries have used this opportunity or, indeed, even refer to S&T.The CSPs of only five countries mention S&T in relation to agriculture, and in each of these cases it plays a minor role:
Belize: introduction of technology in general;
Ghana: capacity building for organizations involved in post-harvest research;
Guinea: technical education in agriculture;
Madagascar: improve the criteria for assessing technical viability in hydro agriculture;
Vanuatu: ongoing research and development programmes

The priority given to S&T in the 52 countries is strikingly low, particularly in view of the importance attached to it in the Libreville Declaration, issued by the Heads of State and Government of the ACP States in 1997 which called for


‘a new ACP-EU cooperation arrangement to respond to and cater for the changing and diverse development requirements of ACP States [that] places greater emphasis on … enhanced access to science and technology, especially on information technology and the financing of research … [and] reinforces human capacity in the agriculture sector; this plays a key role in the reduction of poverty and promotion of socio-economic development, especially in the least-developed countries. In this context, it is necessary to strengthen and reinforce the role of the CTA in ACP institutional capacity development, particularly information management in order to improve access to technologies for increasing agricultural productivity, commercialisation, food security and rural development …’


Various ACP–EU policy dialogues on S&T have been organized, as reported at the conference ‘Demanding Innovation’, held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in October 2001. Yet, even countries involved in such dialogues, like Ghana, Senegal and Uganda, have not prioritized S&T. This is indicative of a serious discontinuity of effort. The overall conclusion is that science and technology play a subordinate role in ACP–EU cooperation, despite initial lip service to its importance.
The subjects addressed in the various documents were categorized as follows:
18:..S&T general
18:..S&T agriculture
11:..Science
2:..Biotechnology
2:..Others
Note that some documents fall into more than one category, e.g. biotechnology and agriculture. Most of the 18 documents referring to S&T in agriculture concern National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS).
For the full text of the Libreville Declaration, see

Louk Box et. al. (2003) Review of Science and Technology plans in ACP countries, University of Maastricht, Maastricht.
 
Date 2015-03-30T07:08:11Z
2015-03-30T07:08:11Z
2003
 
Type News Item
 
Identifier CTA. 2003. Review of S&T policy plans in ACP countries. Knowledge for Development. CTA, Wageningen, The Netherlands
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/63766
 
Language en
 
Relation Knowledge for Development
 
Publisher CTA