Harnessing Nanotechnology for Sustainable Development in Africa

Editors: Hailemichael Teshome Demissie, Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng, Guillermo Foladori and Desalegn Mengesha

It is now the least contested view that technology has made people wealthier, healthier and wiser. This progress has not been without the iatrogenic effects of technology. Development, if untamed, could bring about existential risk to humanity and hence the rise of the concept of ‘sustainable development’. 

The simultaneous pursuit of the sustainability trio, viz, economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity or, in the SDGs lingo, the needs of ‘People, Planet, Prosperity’, is the wicked challenge that humanity has yet to resolve.  Technology has been providing solutions to diffuse this tension between the conflicting ideas of sustainable development and this has been recognized in the proposals of the SDGs. Platform technologies like nanotechnology, biotechnology, 3D printing, big data, artificial intelligence and other emerging fields of technology are offering promises and delivering results towards achieving sustainability. The book, perhaps the first of its kind in Africa, focusses on nanotechnology and its promises and risks to sustainable development in Africa.

The project on this book was launched at a nanotechnology policy masterclass held at the University of Gondar, in Gondar, Ethiopia, in August, 2015. The masterclass was organized by the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) and the University of Gondar (UoG) in collaboration with the Science, Technology and Information Centre (STIC). It was attended by researchers, policy makers and representatives from funding agencies from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, the African Union and the UN ECA. 

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