Challenges of funding renewable natural resources: research and education in sub-saharan Africa

The purpose of this paper is to elicit an intellectual debate thereby opening vistas for improving our knowledge and perspectives in the subject. As we jointly explore some of the challenges and suggest possible solutions, we are likely to over-generalize. There is a need for more contextualized analysis before one can implement the ideas contained in this lecture in a specific country. I have deliberately avoided the common rhetoric and poverty statistics that have recently come to characterize or accompany any statement on Africa. I strongly believe that Africa will rise again from the ashes of marginalization and deprivation, from the intellectual and systematic discouragements that have even led our own intellectuals to lose self esteem, believe in doom and seek to exit the continent. For so long, the rhetoric that we are poor and therefore incapable of spawning our own development has dominated communication and information systems that they are now becoming “facts” in the minds of some people. If this is not nipped in the bud for the youth, it will cost the continent dearly in terms of future development. So let me begin by stating the obvious. The only way we can develop in Africa is by recognizing and engaging our own intellectual and physical strengths for that purpose. Inputs from others may be helpful, but they are complementary.

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