African scholars have been urged to embrace innovation and transformative thinking in pursuing research to provide answers to critical issues affecting the continent to unlock Africa’s potential on its Sustainable Development prospects.
Africa’s challenges from poverty, climate change, lack of sufficient technologies and capabilities continue to hinder the continent’s growth. Africa’s economy is shrinking at a rate of 75% and research should be incorporated into solutions to ensure that policies are aligned properly with the realities on the ground.
While Kenya’s vision 2030 seeks to ensure the country is transformed into an industrialised and middle income economy and provide high quality life by 2030, the country continues to grapple with challenges such as providing public goods to its citizens yet transformative research offers solutions.
In view of these research challenges facing the continent, the Africa Sustainability Hub at the African Centre for Technology studies in collaboration with the University of Sussex convened a meeting of top scholars on international development from around the world in Nairobi to discuss innovative ways to ensure that research uptake and collaborations are well incorporated into the development agenda of countries’ policies.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of agriculture, Professor Hamadi Bogo acknowledges that despite funding for research being minimal, the government was making efforts to ensure that research systems are strengthened and incorporated appropriately within the big four agenda.
“African researchers need to ensure that its researchers take a key role in ensuring top quality research is produced as owners of research often control the knowledge systems. It’s critical to map out research and institute mapping on the research agenda critical for national discourses” he noted.
Professor Mbogo urged young people to engage in the country’s research agenda while noting the importance of researcher’s collaboration with political systems to ensure that their efforts towards research and policy update don’t disintegrate. “We need to critically re-package and sustain conversations on innovative research methodologies for Kenya,” he added.
Dr. Joanes Atela, the Head of Climate Change programme at ACTS noted that it was critical to engage effectively on sustainable development which remains a key landmark policy and a critical development agenda. “In Kenya, young scholars continue to develop innovative platforms that offer significant opportunities for the research agenda that seeks to enhance the development trajectory of the country,” he stated.
Dr. Atela further noted that evidence-based research is the key to unlocking solutions to the country’s challenges.
Dr. Richard Munang, the United Nations Environment Africa Regional Climate Change Programme coordinator noted that the findings on climate change should be critically addressed as global warming was worsening indicating the need to take the Paris agreement on climate change seriously.
“Research should not be isolated from mainstream development as has been currently observed as is the case of Kenya’s big four agenda which has a defeaning silence on rule of research and optimization and realization of the big four agenda,’ noted Dr. Munang. He reiterated that these challenges may be resolved through ideas; innovations, incentives, institutions and inclusive partnerships to enhance development.
Professor David Ockwell from the University of Sussex noted the importance of research collaborations across the continents as it offered great cross-learning opportunities for researchers to learn and engage in meaningful development processes.
“These joint learnings offer novel ideas for innovative platforms that are effective for collaborations which also enhance policy uptake informed across the world. Evidence-based research is key to unlocking solutions that the various continents continue to face,” added Dr. Adrian Ely from the University of Sussex.
This meeting was convened after a 3-year project called the Pathways Network, funded by the International Science Council, which used ‘Transformation Lab’ (T-Lab) processes to explore transformations in society and ecology in six countries around the world. They looked at how different people understand problems and imagine new solutions. In Kenya, the project looked at how mobile-enabled payments for solar power could work for poor people, exploring the barriers and opportunities for change in policy and practice.
The project also worked in China, India, the UK, Mexico and Argentina on transformations in agriculture and food, low carbon development, urbanisation and water. Now, the Africa Sustainability Hub is drawing lessons from this project for Kenya and the wider sustainable development agenda in Africa.
Notes to the Editor:
- Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 in Africa and beyond will require major transformations in economies, societies and politics.
- Collaborative research and partnerships that the Africa Sustainability Hub is pioneering, along with its partners in the global PATHWAYS network through embracing South-South and North-South research partnership seeks to help unlock some of the research needs of Africa’s Agenda 2063.
