Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-20-Speech-3-449"
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"en.20080220.19.3-449"2
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"Mr President, this motion for a resolution on supporting scientific cooperation with Africa is very timely, because it comes hot on the heels of a series of statements on science in Africa over the last 12 months – by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in January 2007, in the G8 Summit Declaration about strengthening research and development cooperation and in the new chapter on ICT and science and technology in the EU-Africa Strategy.
With the Science with Africa conference in Addis Ababa coming up in March, this is indeed the moment for the European Parliament to register its support for a new and intensified approach to EU-Africa scientific cooperation. Of course, there have been initiatives in the past. There have been scholarships and research fellowships to help African scientists come and work in Europe. There has been support for certain projects. But what there has not been is fully developed two-way scientific cooperation between Africa and the EU.
There is not yet a solid research base within Africa for Africa. The statistics say it all. Africa has only 1% of the world’s scientific researchers, but 13% of the world’s population. Only 1 in 10 000 people in Africa is a scientist or engineer, whereas the figure is 1 in 200 in industrial nations.
Yet, because of climate change, there is no part of the planet where research is more vital. Global warming in Africa threatens to wipe out the modest progress that has been made towards the Millennium Development Goals. But, if only the science and technology base was stronger, climate change could also be an opportunity for Africa.
This motion for a resolution rightly makes specific mention of solar energy. It is the renewable energy which Africa has in abundance. Huge advances are being made today in photovoltaic technology. Last Friday, I was at the New and Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth in Northumberland, where innovative research is going on to reduce the cost of solar electricity by focusing the sun’s rays on very small silicon cells.
I am delighted that this research is happening in my constituency, but unless such research and development happens in Africa too, the immense potential of photovoltaics to deliver megawatts of electricity across Africa will never be realised. I hope that this is the sort of scientific cooperation we are now moving towards."@en1
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