decisions about the potential advantages it offers (Lynam 1995).

Countries therefore need to build on the local capacity emerging in the form of local companies and small and medium-size enterprises.

Protect indigenous genetic knowledge and stimulate private investment

Concerns have been raised that Africas rich biodiversity may be exploited by rich countries appropriating indigenous African knowledge and resources. These concerns arise in part from the claim that todays global intellectual property rights system favours countries that have a strong base of innovation. This system is based on the 1995 WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which requires all signatories to extend intellectual property protection to micro-organisms, plant genetic materials, and techniques used for genetic manipulation. Intellectual property is also protected under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). But many observers have argued that the current system is biased against access by poor countries to their own conventional plant varieties and genetic resources. Africa needs to safeguard the regions threatened biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. Some groups have taken initiatives to do so. In early 2000, for example, a consortium of farm groups in Southern Africa launched the South African Seed Initiative to ensure food and nutrition security for farmers and consumers. They appealed to the international community to prevent the importation of inappropriate seeds to Southern Africa because it could undermine agro-biodiversity and thus food security for years. African countries also need to support efforts to create an intellectual property clearinghousean international or regional agency to collect and distribute information on patents. An intellectual property clearinghouse could help to move the privately claimed knowledge of genetic resources into the hands of specific users able to add value through their applications of that knowledge. Moreover, if the patent system is considered a solution to the tension between granting private intellectual property rights to otherwise intrinsically public goods and keeping those goods in the public domain, the clearinghouse could serve as an important mechanism for making patents effective. Its main functions would be to: Connect technology holders in industrial countries with companies, universities, and national and international research centres as well as with donors. Develop and provide a patent database. Assist in the negotiation of licence agreements. Disseminate research material. Provide training services to developing countries, including on the drafting of technology transfer protocols. African countries need to support efforts to create an intellectual property clearinghouse

Who would run such a clearinghouse? And who would cover the costs? The questions remain open. One possible solution to the financing issue would be to have member countries contribute a share of revenues from patents.

Realizing the Promise of Green Biotechnology for the Poor

115

Creating a sound system for risk assessment requires several strategic interventions by governments

Clearinghouse activities to facilitate access by poor farmers to patented research results are already being undertaken by CAMBIA IP Resource (Australia), which is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The institution aims to enhance the ability of public sector institutions and small and medium-size enterprises to develop biotechnology for improving crops worldwide (see http://www.cambiaip.org). Another initiative, the Global Knowledge Centre on Crop Biotechnology, part of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) family, is committed to sharing information on crop biotechnology with as many people as possible (http://www.isaaa.org/kc). The CGIAR system itself could become the virtual host for an Internet-based exchange system. Efforts also need to be made to create the biotechnology equivalent to the open source movement in the software industry, so that new scientific discoveries worldwide can be assessed and applied to food insecurity and poverty in a timely manner. This would entail: Providing public access to open source research results, under the condition that those who use the freely accessible material will in return make their research results accessible to others. Conducting research on the business case underlying the open source movement.

Establish national regulatory institutions for risk assessment

Most African countries lack the scientific capacity to assess the safety of innovations in biotechnology, the analytical capacity to evaluate their worth, the regulatory capacity to implement guidelines for their safe deployment, and the legal capacity to enforce sanctions for transgressions of laws relating to their use. Introducing and implementing biosafety regulations can overstretch local capabilities and slow or inhibit technology transfer. The systems required are complex. For example, genetic engineering requires extensive monitoring and implementation of complicated protocols, such as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Several countries that are developing or applying modern biotechnologysuch as Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and Zimbabwedo so with limited capacity for assessing and managing risk. GM crops have been released in South Africa and are in the process of being released in Egypt, Kenya, and Morocco, but their environmental impact has not yet been thoroughly assessed nor their desirability adequately appraised. Establishing a system of biosafety review is complex. It requires not only formulating and adopting safety guidelines and establishing national and institutional biosafety committees, but also creating the infrastructure for contained field-testing of GMOs. Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe have taken steps to develop biosafety review mechanisms, with the process most advanced in South Africa. And Cameroon, Cte dIvoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania are initiating discussions of biosafety issues among the national agencies involved (map 3.1). Creating a sound system for risk assessment requires several strategic interventions by governments:

116

Harnessing Technologies for Sustainable Development

Map 3.1 Status of biosafety in Africa, 2000

Commercial GMO trials Guidelines Initiating discussions

Source: Adapted from Wambugu 2001.

Establishing a clear policy framework with coherent guidelines outlining where responsibility for the introduction of innovations in biotechnology begins and ends. Developing policy that guarantees the systematic and comprehensive testing of all new technology with inputs not just from the natural sciences, assessing the health risks, but also from research and regulatory bodies able to map out potential socio-economic risks. This broad review is necessary to ensure that the ludicrous and heartbreaking does not arisethat more people die from hunger while more food is being produced, because they cannot afford the food. Ensuring that risk assessment has a built-in system of checks and balances to safeguard the independence of test resultsso that the potential risk of new products is not assessed by those wanting to release the product on the market.

Form strategic public-private alliances

To realize the promise of biotechnology for the neediest in the initial phases, many products must reach the poor free of charge. Ensuring that they do will require strategic alliances between scientists and industry. The development of golden ricea nutrient-rich riceprovides a good example of how this can work in practice. Before golden rice could be put to use for the poor, the project had to resolve myriad patent rights issues involving 70 intellectual property offices. The inventors solved the problem by creating an alliance with Zeneca, which acquired the patent rights for commercial use and in turn provided the technology through free licences to public research institutions (Potrykus 2001). To reach the poor, free distribution of seeds is possible in the short term, but in the medium term there is a need to promote local seed companies to ensure a smooth transfer
Realizing the Promise of Green Biotechnology for the Poor 117

of the technology to the neediest. Countries also need to ensure that poor farmers have access to extension services, local markets, productive resources (land, water, credit), and infrastructure. Given the already strained budgets of many African countries, strategic public-private partnerships should be encouraged. Such partnerships have had excellent successes in telecommunications (mobile telephony), in micro-finance and education, and in the construction of dams, roads, ports, and railways. In the medium term there is a need to promote local seed companies to ensure a smooth transfer of the technology to the neediest

Conclusion
Biotechnology offers rich opportunities to increase agricultural productivity and address current food shortages in Africa. It accelerates plant and animal breeding efforts. It offers solutions to previously intractable problems. But it is no panacea. African countries need to develop appropriate national policies and identify key national priorities for biotechnology, bearing in mind the potential biological risks and the needs of poor people who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. And the international community needs to loosen the arrangements for access to proprietary technologyenabling developing countries to provide poor farmers with improved seeds while protecting them from inappropriate restrictions on propagating their crops. Open debate is essential. Governments should involve diverse stakeholders in the development of national biotechnology policies, strategies, and plans. And they should encourage full and candid discussions on biotechnology, aimed at determining how best to address problems while building achievements. Biotechnology policy should take into account national development policies, private sector interests, market opportunities, and mechanisms and links for the diffusion of technology. The biggest risk for Africa would be to do nothing, allowing the biotechnology revolution to pass the continent by. If that happens, Africa will miss opportunities for reducing food insecurity and child malnutrition and see the agricultural productivity gap with industrial countries widen. The result could be what Ismail Serageldin (1999), former chairperson of the CGIAR, calls scientific apartheid, with cutting-edge science oriented exclusively towards industrial countries and large-scale farming.

118

Harnessing Technologies for Sustainable Development

Annex 3.1 Current efforts in plant biotechnology in selected African countries

Country Burkina Faso Area of research Biological nitrogen fixation, production of legume inoculants, fermented foods, medicinal plants Burundi In vitro production of ornamental plants (orchids) Tissue culture of medicinal plants Micro-propagation of yam, potato, banana, and cassava Supply of disease-free in vitro plants Cameroon Tissue culture of cocoa trees (Theobroma cacao), rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis), coffee trees (Coffee arabica), yam (Dioscorea spp.), and cocoyam (Xanthosoma mafutta) In vitro propagation of tea, cotton, banana, pineapple, and oil palm Congo, Dem. Rep. In vitro propagation of rice, maize, potato, soybean, and multipurpose trees (such as Acacia auriculiforius and Leucaena leucocefhala) Experimental production of biofertilizers based on rhizobials, nitrogenfixing bacteria Tissue culture of medicinal plants (such as Nuclea latifolia and Phyllanthus niruroides) Congo, Rep. In vitro culture of spinach (Basella alba) Plant pathology studies in controlling tomato rot due to the pathogen Pseudomonas solanacearum Bioprospecting of nitrogen-fixing species Cte d'Ivoire In vitro production of coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) and yam Virus-free micro-propagation of eggplant (Solanum spp.) Production of rhizobial-based biofertilizers Egypt Ethiopia Genetic engineering of maize, potatoes, and tomatoes Tissue culture of teff Micro-propagation of forest trees Gabon Large-scale production of virus-free banana and plantain (Musa spp.) and cassava plantlets (Manihot esculenta) Ghana Micro-propagation of yam, cocoa, plantain, cassava, banana, and pineapple Polymerase chain reaction facility for virus diagnostics Kenya Production of disease-free plants and micro-propagation of citrus, pyrethrum, bananas, potatoes, strawberries, sugarcane, and sweet potato Micro-propagation of ornamentals (carnations, alstromeria, gerbera, anthurium, leopard orchids) and forest trees In vitro selection for salt tolerance in finger millet Transformation of beans, tobacco, and tomato Transformation of sweet potato with proteinase inhibitor gene

Realizing the Promise of Green Biotechnology for the Poor

119

Current efforts in plant biotechnology in selected African countries (continued)

Kenya (continued) Transformation of feathery mottle virusinfected sweet potato with coat protein gene (a collaborative effort involving Monsanto, International Service for the Acquisition of Agro-biotech Applications, U.S. Agency for International Development, Agricultural Biotechnology for Sustainable Productivity, and Kenya Agricultural Research Institute) Tissue culture regeneration of papaya Decay-reducing technology for long-term storage of potato and sweet potato Marker-assisted selection in maize for drought tolerance and insect resistance Well-established microbial resource centres providing microbial biofertilizers in East Africa Madagascar Tissue culture programme supporting conventional production of disease-free rice and maize plantlets and medicinal plants Production of biofertilizers to boost production of groundnuts (Arachis hypogea) and bambara groundnuts (Vigna subterranea) Malawi Micro-propagation of tea, trees (Uapaca), banana, and tropical woody species Morocco Micro-propagation of forest trees and date palms Development of disease-free and stress-tolerant plants Molecular biology of cereals and date palms Molecular markers Field tests for transgenic tomato Nigeria Micro-propagation of yam, ginger, cassava, and banana Long-term conservation of yam, cassava, banana, and medicinal plants Embryo rescue for yam Transformation and regeneration of yam, cowpea, cassava, and banana Genetic engineering of cowpea for virus and insect resistance Marker-assisted selection of maize and cassava DNA fingerprinting of yam, cassava, banana, and pests and microbial pathogens Genome linkage maps for yam, cowpea, cassava, and banana Human resource development through group training, degree-related training, fellowships, and networking Madagascar Tissue culture programme supporting conventional production of disease-free rice and maize plantlets and medicinal plants Production of biofertilizers to boost production of groundnuts (Arachis hypogea) and bambara groundnuts (Vigna subterranea) Malawi Micro-propagation of tea, trees (Uapaca), banana, and tropical woody species

120

Harnessing Technologies for Sustainable Development