Akinbo urges African countries to avoid becoming dumping ground 

By Vicky Orjime

African governments have been challenged on the need to create the enabling policy and environment to support innovations.

A Senior programme officer with the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), Prof. Olalekan Akinbo, who gave the advice today, said it was by creating room for innovation that African countries could avoid becoming a dumping ground for other countries’ innovations. 

Prof Akinbo, who is also the Supervisor at the Centre of Excellence in STI, was speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the imperative for innovation in Africa.

While warning that countries unwilling to innovate would definitely be left behind, Akino urged governments in Africa to deploy innovation into agriculture and move from subsistence to commercial farming, so as to guarantee food sufficiency with surplus for exports.

He said: “We are in a global village and every country, every continent relates in the area of trade. Therefore, Africa needs to be competitive

“I strongly support the Agenda 2063 that our leaders gave us, which is that the Africa we want by 2063 is Africa that is food-sufficient.

“We have the resources, the soil, the environment that can make this happen and achievable.’’

He noted that the policy some countries in Africa put in place to support innovation were critical, and that this was what the African Union Agenda 2063 was looking into.

Akinbo disclosed that this was what would enable the free trade area agreement and facilitate inter-trade within the continent.

He added that this would allow Africa to compete favourably in the global market.

Responding to whether genome editing technology used in precision agriculture to improve crop yield marked a breakthrough in biotechnology, Akinbo said it was one of the tools developed by scientists.

The AU official said there were breakthroughs in terms of scientific and innovative ways of improving agriculture.

“Presently, we are at one edge and that is genome editing, which is the latest, but other ones are still coming.

“Artificial intelligence is also coming and that would equally help. There are other innovations coming also to improve agriculture. So, for me, the breakthrough is progressive and in relative terms.’’

He maintained that for now, genome editing was just one tool that was new and coming up strong to improve plant and animals, even as it is not a one-stop shop.

Akinbo also noted that the technology was one of the tools used to enhance what had been done before and did not come at the end of innovation for improvement