Nigeria Content Online

The World Bank has earmarked $180 million for research in technology development in Africa universities.

The fund is to be
administered through the Africa Technology Policy Study (ATPS) the
Executive Director ATPS Network Kevin Chuka Urama disclosed in Yola, at
a workshop.

Participants urged
policy makers, researchers and the government to embrace the use of
local scientific and technological innovations in exploiting the vast
raw and mineral resources of their respective nations, for the
wellbeing of their members.

The Federal
University of technology Yola (FUTY), which hosted the event, is among
the category of institutions set to benefit from a $7 million dollar
funding grant benchmarked upon its successful award as ATPS’ centre of
excellence.

The Minister of
Science and Technology, Mohammed Abubakar, represented by the Director
General, Raw Materials Development Council, P.A. Onwualu, urged science
practitioners in the country to come up with strategies that can lead
to development of a “home grown” technology based policy for the
transformation of the Nigerian economy, and move it from its monolithic
economy of oil as its sole source of revenue.

The ATPS network
Nigerian chapter berated the failure of many African states to develop
their scientific and technological capacities through funding of
research and training in science and technology, explaining that “much
of the efforts made so far to develop research and training in science
and technology in Africa have been through Western international
scientific cooperation initiatives.

The Minister of Science and Technology said that most governments in
Africa have come to the realization that science and technology
education is the only way the continent can be “lighted” and move “from
being called the dark continent to a continent of light.”