Government Should Not Kill MSI Science Initiative

by Thomas G. Egwang

The Uganda Millennium Science Initiative (MSI), financed by the World Bank to support scientific development in Uganda, was announced with fanfare in 2006. It signalled to the world that Uganda was ready to take its position alongside those nations that leverage national economic development on science and technology, and that hitherto it would put great stock in science and technology. As a Ugandan scientist, it marked the dawn of a new era for me. But did we celebrate too soon?

According to SciDev, the $35 million MSI programme was to increase the number and quality of scientists produced by Uganda’s universities and research centres; and boost the country’s technological productivity in industrial, agricultural, and other sectors. It promised to reverse the brain-drain. This is the stuff that has made advanced developing countries like India and Brazil what they are today. Brazil and India, alongside Russia and China, will displace the G8 countries from their perch of global economic dominance by 2050. These countries’ high GDP growth is not by accident. They see their development activities through a science and technology lens.

By all accounts, the MSI programme has made great progress over three years in areas like malaria vaccines, banana-processing and value addition, fisheries, agro-biotechnology, innovations in science and medical teaching, climate change, and innovative partnerships between the private sector and academia. Surely, these activities will make inroads into poverty. Unfortunately, an ominous cloud hangs over the Uganda MSI programme.

It might not be renewed by the World Bank because our government does not care about it anymore. Through an anachronism, science and technology in Uganda falls under the Ministry of Finance which lacks champions for science. The lone champion for science in Uganda is President Museveni, but he is not at the Ministry of Finance.

Article here.