Prescription for Africa:

Urgent health problems need immediate attention before large regions of Africa can move beyond a state of crisis: Child and maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS and even access to water pose huge, although still-solvable challenges. But even while these crises are being addressed, local and national African governments must look to the future and find ways to boost the numbers of young people who can attend graduate and professional education. This was the message of Narciso Matos, PhD, a chemist by training and currently the director of African Higher Education at Carnegie Corporation of New York. He spoke last Wednesday at the UCSF Global Health Sciences http://globalhealthsciences.ucsf.edu/ spring symposium, held at the Mission Bay campus. Matos was joined by Mamphela Ramphele, MD, PhD, chair of a black economic empowerment company and the first black woman vice chancellor of a South African university. Winston Soboyejo, PhD, also addressed the symposium, offering an inspiring plan for increasing the scientific and technical capacity of all of Africa. Matos, educated in Mozambique and Berlin, related that only 800 doctors practice in all of Mozambique, which has a population of 10 million. Without action, the future does not look much brighter: Fewer than 1,000 students are currently attending medical school, he said.

Narciso Matos

The good news, though, is the great willingness of the world community to help advance Africa's growth and health. He fears new opportunities may go disproportionately to the wealthier citizens and not reach most of the people. Part of the solution, Matos said, lies in promoting networks of scholars to stimulate intellectual and professional growth throughout the continent. This network would aim to create centers of excellence in key regions that can exchange expertise and draw highly trained Africans and visiting scholars to boost the level of training and generate expertise to benefit the most people. Matos championed what he said was one of the most promising examples of such networks of scholars and centers of advanced training - the African Institute of Science and Technology, established through the Nelson Mandela Institution. The Global Health Sciences symposium's final speaker was Winston Soboyejo, chair of the African Science Committee for this emerging African Iinstitute, and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University.

Winston Soboyejo

Engines of Growth In most of the world, Soboyejo pointed out, science and technology are recognized as the true engines of growth and development. But foreign aid to Africa has frequently focused on economic development, and this has largely failed. His vision - at once practical and idealistic - is for a pan-African network of science and technology institutes, based in at least three countries and drawing on top scientists, engineers and scholars from throughout Africa and the developed world. The first class is planned to begin studying at the first institute in 2008. The vision of growth through excellence in science and engineering was first articulated by Nelson Mandela a few years ago, Soboyejo said. Many forward thinkers view the biological sciences as leading scientific, technical and therefore economic growth in the 21st century, and so Soboyejo and his colleagues plan to focus one institute on this rapidly advancing field. For the committee to plan and advance this proposal for a biological sciences institute, he has recruited UCSF's Bruce Alberts, PhD, professor of biochemistry and for 10 years the president of the National Academy of Sciences. Also recruited for the committee is Haile Debas, MD, executive director of UCSF Global Health Sciences. To convey his own vision of the network of institutes, Soboyejo likes to use a "flower model," likening the connections between the new institutes - and between them and existing institutions - to the array of petals on a flower. The focus, he said, should be to integrate the work at different sites in different African countries, and to use the growing network to focus on the future growth and health of all of Africa. As a practical matter, visiting scientists do not have to spend an academic year or sabbatical offering guidance at the institutes, he said. They can come for a month or a week, whatever fits their own schedules. This strategy builds from the inside and grows the capacity of Africa to help itself, rather than relying on economic development from the outside, Soboyejo pointed out. This approach offers Africa a real prospect of growth and health in the 21st century, he concluded. Related Links: Global Health Sciences African Leader Champions Women's Health as Key to Economic Prosperity
UCSF Today, May 10, 2007 Photos/Elisabeth Fall