Minister Dugasse

The Minister for Industries & International Business, Mr. Jacquelin Dugasse, represented Seychelles at the first Nepad Ministerial Conference on science and technology, which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 6 to 7th November 2003.

Nepad (New Partnership for Africa Development) is a socio-economic reform programme of the African Union (AU), which aims at building the foundation to achieve self-sustainable development for Africa.

The component on science and technology of the Nepad was considered as top priority, as the subject cuts across all the sectors of economy.

The conference has approved an outline of a plan of action on science and technology, which is a synthesis of the key decisions taken during the two-day meeting.  The document also contains flagship programmes, a governance structure and funding mechanisms.  The flagship programmes are a range of priority areas such as biodiversity science and technology, biotechnology, information and communication technologies, energy technologies, materials science, space science and technologies, post harvest and technologies, desertification research, science and technology for manufacturing and laser technology.  The implementation of the flagship programmes will be guided by crosscutting themes at national and regional levels such as centres of excellence, innovation hubs, human resource capacity development, science and technology policy development, public-private partnerships to promote development, etc.

During the next twelve months, the plan of action will be developed into a comprehensive business plan with programmes and costs to present to international donors.

The conference was attended by almost all the African member states and several international agencies such as World Bank and UNESCO, were also represented.

Twenty to thirty years ago, Africa and Asia were about at the same level of development, but to date Asia has become a newly industrialised region whereas Africa is lagging behind.  A clear and well-coordinated science and technology strategy was what triggered the Asian economic and industrialisation boom.

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