AAAS
/ International
/ Africa
Foreword
In late 1999 the AAAS Africa Program invited a small group of Mozambican scientists to the United States to participate in several key meetings that enabled them to share information of interest to U.S. scientists and to explore possibilities for collaboration. The meetings took place in New York, Miami, and Washington D.C. in February 2000, coinciding with both the AAAS Annual Meeting and the National Summit on Africa. The project was made possible by support from the National Science Foundation.
The centerpiece of the Mozambicans' visit was a forum on "Science in Mozambique: Exploring Opportunities for Collaboration," featuring brief presentations by each of the visiting scientists, followed by discussion focusing on collaborative opportunities. The papers presented at the forum are included here in this online proceedings volume (see links at right). The session was held Friday, 18 February, in conjunction with the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington and was well attended by an audience of U.S. policymakers, donors, and scientific colleagues. The Mozambican delegation included scientists from Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) in the disciplines of agronomy, forestry, marine biology, ethnobotany, and information technology (IT). The delegation also included Venancio Massingue, IT specialist and Vice Rector for UEM, and Lidia Brito, who, in addition to being a forester, was appointed Minister for Science, Technology, and Higher Education during the planning for the meeting.
By fortuitous coincidence the 2000 AAAS Annual Meeting (17-22 February) significantly overlapped with the National Summit on Africa (16-20 February). Thus we were able to cooperate with the Summit organizers, and indeed a highlight of the Mozambique project was Minister Brito's address to the National Summit on Africa during the opening plenary on Thursday, 17 February. Following President Bill Clinton's address at the opening ceremony, Dr. Brito's panel also included U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ibrahim Gambari (Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Adviser on Africa), J. Brady Anderson (Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development), K.Y. Amoako (Under Secretary General and Executive Secretary, UN Economic Commission for Africa), and Gayle Smith (Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs, National Security Council). By special arrangement with the National Summit organizers, participation in the full Summit was enabled for all the members of the Mozambican delegation.
The delegation made good use of its time in the United States and at the AAAS Annual Meeting. The entire delegation was fully registered for the Annual Meeting, enabling them to participate in all meeting events and interact with a broad cross-section of their peers.
Two Annual Meeting events (in addition to the "Science in Mozambique" forum) specifically incorporated individuals from the Mozambican delegation.
- Salomao Bandeira participated in an Annual Meeting symposium on "Ethnobotany:
Bioprospecting Effects on Drug Discovery in the Next Millennium"
(organized by the AAAS Directorate for International Program's Latin
America and the Caribbean Project), presenting a paper on "Ethnobotany,
Health Care, and Natural Products: Some Experiences from Africa";
and
- Antonio Hoguane participated in a "Roundtable on Large Marine Ecosystems in Africa," organized by Ken Sherman (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and Chidi Ibe (UN Industrial Development Organization). Following a symposium entitled "Africa Meets the Challenge: Guinea Current Ecosystem Assessment and Management," the Roundtable was held in order to bring together scientists and decisionmakers concerned with marine environmental degradation and resource depletion.This event was a follow-up to a prior roundtable held at the 1997 AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle, organized by AAAS, NOAA, and IUCN (the World Conservation Union). Discussion centered on the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) concept and its application to the coastal waters of Africa. This second Roundtable reviewed the successes of activities in West Africa during the past few years with a focus on how to apply the lessons learned to coastal areas elsewhere in Africa.
Delegation representatives also had personalized individual itineraries allowing them to pursue specific collaborative opportunities relevant to their own fields of interest. The UEM delegation arrived with three specific initiatives that they were prepared to discuss with all counterparts: the Limpopo River Basin Project, focusing on integrated resource management and agricultural research; Large Marine Ecosystem research projects within the Mozambique Channel; and biodiversity research at UEM's Botanical Garden and at the Marine Biological Station on Inhaca Island. Thus representatives visited a number of institutions during their visit, including government research and funding institutions, private foundations, and universities. Highlights of their visits included:
- A strategic planning meeting was held in New York with representatives
of the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The February 14 meeting resulted in UEM's inclusion in
a new inter-foundation "Partnership
to Strengthen African Universities." This project will be a
major focus for foundation support of higher education in Africa for
the coming decade.
- The delegation's visit to Rutgers University built on earlier ties and put concrete plans in motion for expanding
student and faculty exchanges in the marine sciences, engineering, social
sciences, and liberal arts.
- Meetings with the National
Cancer Institute were held to discuss ways NCI could support institutional capacity
building at UEM. NCI offered to train students and faculty and help
upgrade laboratories for participatoin in NCI study of natural products
for cancer and AIDS research.
- Mozambique was invited to join the NSF's international long-term ecological
research (ILTER) program as an extension of the new Limpopo River Basin
Integrated Resource Management research project getting underway in
Mozambique. Follow-up meetings have been held to discuss how best to
integrate the respective research agendas.
- Several meetings -- with the Wildlife Conservation Society in New
York, with NOAA in both Miami and Washington, and with the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in a group meeting hosted
by the Smithsonian Institution -- all advanced proposals for large regional
projects to study marine mammals, coastal zone habitats, and applied
oceanography involving Tanzania, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa.
- Meetings at the World
Bank with the Deputy Chairman for Education and the Deputy Chairman
for Africa (and an array of program officers) were set up for Minister
Brito to explain the set-up and priorities of her new Ministry. The
Bank and NSF were both very interested in the Ministry's plans to adapt
the American concept of community colleges to Mozambican priorities
for sustainable development in rural areas.
- Meetings at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were set up initially to discuss Mozambique's problems with toxic waste and how to minimize environmental damage from the large industrial projects that are now being developed in Mozambique. Given the flood emergency that was beginning to unfold in Mozambique during the trip, EPA staff provided a briefing on how to request EPA technical assistance to deal with catastrophic disasters.
In short, the delegation returned with a long list of government and university contacts who wished to be engaged in some or all of the three priority projects. Each project had its own Mozambican representative leading an implementation team with a defined timetable for follow-up activities. Care was taken to ensure that each US contact had specific interests within their personal portfolios and/or research agendas related to the Mozambican focus initiatives. Thus the actionable results of this delegation's trip are already palpable and set on the road toward fulfillment.
On behalf of the AAAS Africa Program, I would like to thank NSF for its support, and in particular International Division Program Manager Alice Leeds, without whose sage advice and guidance this project would not have been possible. I would also like to thank Harriet McGuire, Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy in Maputo, for her tireless efforts in innumerable ways ranging from logistical preparations to large-scale visionary planning. Her impeccable record-keeping and reporting also contributed enormously to the preparation of this summary. My AAAS colleague Alphonse Bigirimana was invaluable in organizing the often-confusing travel details for the delegation as they moved variously from Mozambique to New York, Washington, Miami, and finally safely back home. Finally, I would also like to express my gratitude to the delegation members themselves for their time, energy, and good will, and in particular to Lidia Brito, who could have been forgiven for backing out of the trip in the wake of her appointment as Minister and all the new responsibilities that entailed, but who, fortunately for us, did not.
John Schoneboom
AAAS Africa Program
Foreword
John Schoneboom
Overview of Mozambique
Antonio Hoguane
Ethnobotany and Health
Care in Mozambique
Salomao Bandeira et al
Marine Sciences and Oceanography
in Mozambique
Antonio Hoguane
The Need for Collaborative
Research on Environment, Soil, and Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture
Zelia Menete
space
AAAS / International / Africa