As part of the continuing evolution of the Africa Charter, we are mapping the existing landscape of equitable research partnerships networks, frameworks, and good practice.
Last week I joined colleagues at the University of Cambridge to learn more about the first decade of work by the JR Biotek Foundation, founded by Dr Carol Ibe, which has the aim of developing expertise among African scientists to tackle agricultural challenges. Dr Ibe was inspired by the struggle of her own grandparents and relatives as they worked the family farm. This led her to pursue a PhD in plant science at Cambridge as a Gates scholar, and later to found the JR Biotek Foundation.
To date the foundation has trained more than 260 African scientists from 100 institutions in 19 countries. Their programmes have also included train-the-trainer, mentorship schemes and online courses. It was interesting to hear that while the face-to-face training workshops initially took place in Cambridge, they were later moved to African countries, such as Benin, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. This was because participants found they couldn’t apply the skills they learned in Cambridge back home because of insufficient resources, equipment and other factors. Subsequent training was therefore Africa-based and substantially expanded, with one workshop involving 100 participants.
Another issue African early career researchers were facing was around funding, and in response the Foundation created the Bio-Innovation Pitch Challenge. Groups of African researchers could put forward their own innovative project ideas which the fund enabled them to take forward. They are now launching the Agri-Innovation & Impact Project (AGRIIP), which aims to bring researchers into closer proximity with local farming communities. “It’s a movement that sees food security as a right and not a privilege,” says Dr Ibe, “that sees Africa as a land of opportunities not challenges.”
It is interesting to see the ways in which the Foundation, during its 10-year evolution, has become increasingly Africa-centred. The launch of AGRIIP marks a further step towards using locally-developed knowledge to make useful change in the communities that need it, and for the farmers who inspired Dr Ibe in the first place. She also told me how important it is to engage the diaspora in your team. “I don’t need to read about this stuff,” she said, “I’ve lived it!”
Collaborative research for food security
As the keynote speakers and chairs outlined some of the collaborative research underway in plant science and livestock productivity, they emphasised the importance of research being indigenised in Africa, and for more useful translation of knowledge into real-world impacts. Professor John Carr, of the Virology & Molecular Plant Pathology Group at the University of Cambridge, stressed the importance of fostering a community of innovators in the face of pests, pathogens and the challenge of climate change. “It’s about African scientists developing a self-reliant agricultural future,” he said.
One question put to the panel that particularly stood out was about local knowledge perspectives in relation to the adoption of new agricultural technologies. How can farmers be convinced when “our epistemology is to let things grow naturally”? The panel answered this with suggestions that at primary school African children need to learn the value of food from day one, and suggested that when genetic modification of crops is developed and undertaken in Africa (rather than the global North), that will also help. Asking these sorts of questions – reviewing epistemological starting points – is the sort of critical reflection that is useful to ensure collaborative research doesn’t default to Western-centric knowledge systems.
By Heather Child, PARC Communications Officer
Find out more about the Roots of Resilience event, with more information about the speakers here.
Read more about the JR Biotek Foundation’s latest work.
