The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic. The Programme is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world.

The Desert Margin Program (DMP) The objective of the DMP is to arrest land degradation in Africa's desert margins through demonstration and capacity building activities. The GEF increment to this project from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) will enable the programme to address issues of global environmental importance, in addition to the issues of national economic and environmental importance, and in particular the loss of biological diversity, reduced sequestration of carbon, and increased soil erosion and sedimentation. Key sites harbouring globally significant ecosystems and threatened biodiversity have been selected in each of the nine countries to serve as field laboratories for demonstrations activities related to monitoring and evaluation of biodiversity status, testing of most promising natural resources options, developing sustainable alternative livelihoods and policy guidelines and replicating successful models. The project will make a significant contribution in reducing land degradation in the marginal areas and help conserve biodiversity. Guidelines and recommendations domains and supportive national policies that address biodiversity concerns will be set in place in implementing countries. Executing Agencies for DMP are ICRISAT and the National Agricultura Research Systems of Burkina Faso, Botswana, Kenya, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) is a non-political organization of the National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARIs) of ten countries: Burundi, D. R. Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. It aims at increasing the efficiency of agricultural research in the region so as to facilitate economic growth, food security and export competitiveness through productive and sustainable agriculture.

The Africa 2020 Vision Initiative has two primary objectives:* To develop and promote a shared vision and consensus for action for meeting food needs while reducing poverty and protecting the environment* To generate information and encourage debate to influence action by national governments, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, international development institutions, and other elements of civil society.To realize these objectives, the Initiative engages in four major activities:* Generating timely, state-of-the-art information on key topics related to food, agriculture, and the environment, paying special attention to emerging issues that have long-term implications for feeding the world, alleviating poverty, and protecting natural resources;* Communicating the 2020 Vision challenges and related action program to raise public awareness of the world's food and environmental problems and what can be done to solve them;* Providing fora for dialogue, debate, information sharing, and consensus building among policymakers, researchers, and leaders in nongovernmental organizations, private sector, and media through seminars, workshops, and conferences;* Undertaking pilot activities in research, policy communications, and capacity strengthening to support IFPRI's long-term strategy.seeks to reduce poverty and improve food security in East Africa by generating policy-relevant information through collaborative research activities, improving the dissemination and use of such information, and strengthening local capacity to undertake and communicate policy research. The Network covers Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Systemwide Initiative on Malaria in Agriculture (SIMA) brings together malaria research, agricultural research and target communities to find solutions to the malaria problem. Five specific outputs have been formulated for SIMA. These are: providing a knowledge base, building capacity, developing interventions, increasing awareness and building an international malaria network. Funding is available for SIMA projects based on Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health. These funds have been made available by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to support research, capacity building and knowledge sharing on ecosystem approaches with the objective of reducing malaria and improving health and well-being in countries of Eastern and Southern Africa. Application deadline: 15 January 2003. Coordinator: Clifford Mutero (c.mutero@cgiar.org)

The Southern African Centre for Cooperation in Agricultural Research and Training (SACCAR). Established in 1984, SACCAR has several objectives to strengthen NARSs in member countries: the generation, dissemination and promotion of new technology through inter-country liaison and regional collaborative projects. Other objectives relate to information - to promote the dissemination of scientific information and, in training, to promote human resources development and strengthen the capacity of research and training institutions. The following countries constitute its membership: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Multi-Country Agricultural Productivity Program (MAPP). One of the pillars of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) framework is the systematic application of agricultural science and technology to enhance African agricultural productivity and competitiveness. A comprehensive program to achieve this goal was developed by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and endorsed by NEPAD. As a contribution towards the implementation of the FARA program, the World Bank has formulated a Multi-Country Agricultural Productivity Program (MAPP) for Africa. This proposal has important implications for CGIAR, which is foreseen to contribute further to the enhancement of technology generation and transfer in Africa.

Le Conseil Ouest et Centre Africain pour la Recherche et le Développement Agricoles (CORAF) was created in 1987 by the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARSs) of West and Central Africa, Madagascar and the French Agricultural Research Institutes (CIRAD, IRD/ORSTOM, INRA), CORAF's objective is to reinforce regional scientific cooperation of its member countries without substituting for national agricultural research capabilities. The following countries constitute its membership: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and the Republic of Congo.

Dickson, D. 2005. Can Africa pioneer a new way of doing science? SCIDEVNET article. 24 Jan 2005. Those keen to build a greater scientific capacity in Africa must not fall into the trap of encouraging outdated views on how science should be practiced. If all goes well, the next few months will see a groundswell of political support for the idea that science and technology should be given a key role to play in the alleviation of poverty on the African continent. Already this idea is gaining currency in development circles. Two weeks ago, for example, the secretary-general of the United Nations received a report emphasising that greater investment in science and technology is essential for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (see Science advice 'essential' to meet development goals). Similarly the World Bank has launched a new initiative designed to put all its assistance programmes through what its president James Wolfensohn describes as "the lens of science and technology". This initiative will place a particular emphasis on looking at how lessons drawn from the role of science and technology in promoting social and economic development in Asia can now be applied to the African continent (see World Bank puts science back on the agenda). And similar issues will be high on the agenda next week at a seminar in London organised jointly by the Canadian and British governments, being held under the title 'Building science and technology capacity with African partners'.All this is good news; all too often in recent years, as we have frequently argued, the potential contribution of science and technology to development has, for a variety of reasons, been underplayed within aid policies. But enthusiasm for this change of heart needs to be tempered. It is essential that the type of initiatives and practices being promoted are genuinely responsive to the needs and resources of African states; conversely, steps must to be taken to avoid supporting out-dated practices that are in the process of being abandoned elsewhere.To put it at its simplest, science and technology must not be seen by policy-makers as determinants of development, in the sense of encouraging the idea greater investment in science and technology will somehow lead automatically to social and economic progress (epitomised in the concept of the 'magic bullet'). Rather, both must be seen, as Keith Bezanson and Geoff Oldham argued in this editorial column two weeks ago, as components of broader 'systems of innovation', in which other elements, ranging from intellectual property laws to strengthened university-industry links, have just as essential a role to play (see Rethinking science aid).

African Highlands Initiative (AHI). AHI's research focuses on key natural resource management and agricultural productivity issues in the intensively cultivated highlands of East and Central Africa. Concerned National Agricultural Reseach Institutes (NARIs), International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) and various NGOs are collaborating to improve research and development approaches and partnerships to develop and institutionalize effective and efficient approaches for sustainable integrated natural resource management (INRM) and enhanced productivity. AHI was started by ASARECA in 1995 and is hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). AHI is promoting integrated, inter-institutional research and development efforts with strong community participation to solve critical issues of soil productivity, water and land-use. AHI's mandate and role in ASARECA portfolio is to develop, promote and use an INRM approach for improving development strategies, practices and policies. Coordinator: Ann Stroud (a.stroud@cgiar.org)