Ghana to host 10th Ministerial Forum next week

Accra, April 20, GNA - Ghana is poised for the 10th African Regional Centre Technology Ministerial Forum scheduled for April 27 to April 29.

The Forum to be attended by African Ministers of Environment and Science, high level experts from national, regional and international organizations including nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), financial institutions, Development Partners, Entrepreneurs, Civil Society and Private Sector representatives is to help bring science and technology closer to the daily lives of Africans.

The Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Environment and Science is hosting it in collaboration with the African Centre for Technology (ARCT) based in Senegal.

The ARCT is a centre of excellence established by the Organisation of African Unity now the African Union (AU) with a mandate to promote through training the dissemination, acquisition and transfer of appropriate technologies to institutions in member states. Ms Christine Churcher, Minister of Environment and Science, who announced these at a press briefing in Accra on Thursday, said the objective of the forum was to serve as a platform for information dissemination, sensitization and high-level discussions on the role of the Diaspora in promoting technological capacity building and sustainable development of Africa, especially, within the context of frontier technologies.

It is also to amass relevant information that would enable ARCT, in collaboration with all actors, to prepare a partnership programme, aimed at implementing a plan of action, particularly, within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Science and Technology plan of Action.

Ms Churcher said the forum would focus on specific frontier technologies and biotechnologies; technology acquisition, capacity building and Africa's sustainable development; and mechanisms and strategies for the involvement and contribution of the Diaspora among other things.

She said the forum was expected to generate information that would help to prepare an ARCT plan of action on technology support and capacity building for Africa's sustainable development. The Forum being organized under the context of the challenges of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and NEPAD is under the theme, "Frontier Environmentally Sound Technology (FEST) for Africa's Sustainable Development: The Role of the Diaspora" So far an 18-member national planning committee of the conference, with Dr Joseph Gogo of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have been sitting for the past three months in preparation for the Conference. Dr Gogo said it was important that Africans recognized and made use of science and technology now than to be left behind by the rest of the world.

"Ghana wants to be in the forefront of this technological advancement, because the benefits are definitely going to be enormous," he said. In attendance was Dr Mamadou Abudul Wani, Director, Human Resource, ARCT Secretariat, Senegal. The over 80 participants would include eminent scientists from all over Africa and the Diaspora.