Conference to promote development of West Africa underway in Accra
A conference to discuss and promote innovations for the sustainable development of West African countries has opened in Accra.
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The two-day conference, organised by the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-STEPRI), has brought together experts from academia, the private sector and government, to identify policy, technology and business collaboration opportunities and explore the possibilities to build long-term relationships with their counterparts.
The conference, which is on the theme: “Developing innovation — Putting the pieces together”, is being attended by scientists from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Greece and Denmark.
According to the organisers of the conference, it is to provide a platform that will enable innovation practitioners to network and facilitate innovation research in Ghana and West Africa.
Collaboration in the areas of funding, technology, human resource development, among others, will be discussed, while participants and panellists provide "out of the box" solutions to overcome challenges and seize the opportunities emerging in the West African sub-region.
Speaking at the opening, the Director General of the CSIR, Dr Victor Agyeman, called on the government to cooperate with the relevant organisations and the research community to decide on the innovation agenda of the country.
“In this instance, the government‘s main role is not as a grant office but a network partner and enabling force,” he said.
Dr Agyeman said an economy which was fully geared to new knowledge and technology was poised for growth, job creation and finding solutions to challenges such as food and energy security.
CSIR, Ghana
Over the years, he said, the CSIR, in the pursuit of using science, technology and innovation to catalyse wealth creation, had partnered other institutions such as the National Research Systems to develop many technologies, innovations and services that were relevant to agriculture, industry, health and the services sector.
He was hopeful that the conference would give the participants insights into innovation generation and partnership, transfer, adoptions and application for national development.
Science desks
The Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Mr Mahama Ayariga, in a keynote address, said innovation was important for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of ending poverty and hunger.
He admitted that Ghana had the elements for innovations in terms of institutions, human resource capacity, financing mechanisms, among others, “but what must be done now is the successful piecing of the constituents together”.
He said to embed science in all sectors, the government had set up science desks in all the ministries and appoint chief scientific directors to establish linkages and look for solutions to challenges locally before going beyond the borders of Ghana.
The Deputy Director of CSIR-STEPRI, Dr Godfred Frempong, giving an overview of the conference, said it would serve as a launch pad for the hosting of a larger international conference in Ghana in 2018 which would bring together innovation scholarship and practitioners from across the world.