Fostering STEM and biomedical education and research in Subsaharian Africa

The urgent quest for a new generation of scientists and specialized technicians in Sub-Saharan Africa is motivated by the fast transition of many countries from a low-income to a middle-low-income status, which is posing increasing demand for better health systems, new technologies, new commercial and industrial opportunities. There are a few doubts that African countries must somehow become independent in their technological growth, but there is a significant risk that this is only a wishful statement. The real question is whether and how African countries can fill the gap with the western (i.e. white) world and whether this would be a reasonable endeavour.

The first step is the creation of a research ecosystem, where universities, private companies and public bodies must cooperate. While universities (teaching universities, in our phrasing) are very widespread across the continent as a legacy of colonialism, their ability to deliver new generations of graduates at the level of their western peers is very low. Just to name a few figures, the number of graduates in STEM disciplines is as low as 5% of the total number. Of them, only 20-40% are women. There are very few specialization schools in Medical Universities, so the most brilliant students go (if they can) abroad for their residency, and most of them will never come back. In most of East-Central Africa, there are no Schools of Pharmacy, while there is a prosperity of bachelor programs in nursing, midwifery, and biomedical sciences, as well as a high number of vocational schools for mid-level technicians such as land surveyors and electricians.

Understanding the reason for this will help set up mitigation measures. No doubt that the lack of infrastructure is the main attrition point. Saying 'lack of infrastructure' means several things, from untarred roads to intermittent electricity or water supply. Western students could easily appreciate how difficult it can be to install an NMR or a laser-optical laboratory in these conditions, but they may be perhaps surprised to know that one of the most difficult threat is having courier services (such as DHL) to deliver consumables or sparing parts in those labs. Another perhaps poorly recognized issue is the power consumption (and water consumption) required to run and preserve data centers. A common 'mantra' in western world is that AI should take over many of the problems related, for instances, to medical urgencies, in Africa. For examples, remote diagnosis, remote clinical intervention, AI-based delivery of drugs and so on. But do we really understand how much energy streaming a simple Teams/ Zoom connection requires?

Another point is the social and economic recognition of STEM scientists. Still, as a legacy of colonialism, some professions are more recognized than others socially. Being a lawyer, a medical doctor, or a priest is something different of being a mathematician or a chemist. And, after all, what does a chemist do down there? For this reason, the educational ecosystem must be constantly fed by entrepreneurship and industrial development. Last but not least, every capacity-building action in Sub-Saharan Africa must be finely tuned by cultural adaption. It must never be forgotten that in most of the present African Countries, there is no written tradition. The traditional learning system is not hierarchical and authoritative but shared and collective (Aristoteles never went to Africa...), and the Western way of teaching (i.e. professors ex-cathedra and printed books) is not the way kids are educated to learn by their families. On top of it, books, materials, and lessons are never given in their mother language.

This talk will offer a short wander around these (and other) themes by mostly taking Rwanda as a showcase. Rwanda is still one of the poorest countries in the world, but it is one of the fastest-growing and developing economies. In thirty years, Rwanda has passed from being wiped out by one of the most terrible genocides ever to being a continental hub for pharmaceutical and biotechnological development, the first provider of nuclear energy in East Africa, and one of the most wired and connected societies. We’ll try to answer the question of whether Rwanda is an outlier in the African system or if it can be taken as an example of continental development.