REAPING FROM KENYA’S DRY LANDS

In Kenya, dry lands cover more than 80% of the country, supporting 20% of the total population, 50% of the country’s livestock and 65% of its wildlife. These dry lands normally experience low annual precipitation and high levels of water evaporation while maintaining strong ecological resilience posing significant challenges to development, dry lands have unique natural potential that could be tapped to alleviate poverty.

The region however has great potential that can be of great importance not only to the locals but the country as a whole. This includes livestock and livestock products; hides and skins, meat, milk, ghee, bones, hooves, horns, which are raw materials for the leather industry in the country; nature-based products such as Aloe, Gum, beeswax herbal products, herbal tea, honey, tree dyes, fragrance, wild sisal, wild fruits; Minerals like asbestos, gold, quartz crystals, green and red garnet and the recent oil discovery in Turkana.

Livestock production in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) areas supply more than 40 % of the country’s total livestock demand and export to middle East countries potential  millions sustenance and income for pastoralists and employment opportunities.

The Jubilee government is committed to develop ASALs taking cognizance of the fact that 80% of Kenyan ASAL, hosting about ten million people majority of whom were women.

The Livestock industry contributes about Sh150 billion annually to the economy; the government will partner with the private sector to improve it. Moreover, livestock production and the dairy sector is a major economic and social activity which constitutes a significant part of the rural economy accounting for 14 per cent of the agricultural GDP.

The ASAL regions have some of the best forage trees, shrubs and herbs that support production of high quality honey.  Bee keeping is estimated to contribute significantly to improved livelihoods of most rural communities in Kenya. It contributes close to 4.3 billion Kenya Shillings from honey production alone, which is estimated at 25,000 Metric tonnes annually. Most dry lands also have several herbs and high value trees that are in use locally for medicine.

Export market

Some areas have potential for dry land farming, especially areas that border Turkana river where farmers have irrigated their land to provide fruits, vegetables, cereals and cash crops both for subsistence and market.

Dry lands have a huge potential for cultural tourism and ecotourism, which could be tapped to supplement incomes acquired from livestock keeping. Many of the people in these areas are endowed with unique traditional skills for handicrafts production that have a ready market among millions of tourists visiting East Africa. There are also opportunities in the export market.

For maximum benefit from this region we must overcome the challenges of lack of storage, cooling, production and agro processing facilities, poor transport and communication infrastructure and lack of market information and empower the locals through entrepreneurial skills to be able to transform their lives and become self-sufficient.

Value addition through construction of abattoirs will enable livestock keepers  to sell processed meat products rather than live animals as done traditionally therefore increase their earnings.

The opening up of the Northern Kenya, which comprises a big portion of the ASAL region in Kenya through the LAPPSET project will provide essential infrastructure required to achieve economic development to benefit the locals.

Use of appropriate technologies and value addition of the ASAL products will assure quality products and increase export earnings thereby increasing the land use of this region and its contribution to the national economy cake.

Most importantly, creating awareness on the great potential that this region holds will go a long way into sustainable use of these resources, together with instilling knowledge on how to utilize Science and Technology skills to exploit the great potential that this region offers for sustainable development.

            

FUNDING INNOVATIONS CAN SPUR OUR ECONOMIC GROWTH

Kenya is one of the emerging economies in Africa that is seen as a future star due to its vibrant democracy and economic growth. It has competent manpower necessary to carry out research collaborations and innovations. A more remarkable characteristic of that trend is that emerging markets have increased their innovation and R&D faster than high-income countries. These markets are also largely driving the growth in patent filings worldwide.

This infrastructure is taking shape with a lot of investments in roads and technology. Nairobi for example is seen as an innovation hub, especially in mobile money and applications development, and the mobile penetration in Kenya is high and there is access to broadband for high speed Internet.

The Kenya Vision 2030 recommends strengthened application of science, technology and innovation to raise productivity and efficiency levels across different sectors. It  identifies  the  critical  role  played  by innovation, research  and  development  (R&D)  in accelerating economic development in all the newly industrializing countries of the world. The Vision recognizes the role of science, technology and innovation (STI) in a modern economy, in which new knowledge plays a central role is in wealth creation, social welfare and international competitiveness.

In the Global Innovation Index 2013 (GII), Kenya is ranked at position 99 out of 142 in the world with Low-income economy in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Switzerland retains top spot in 2013. Both Switzerland (1^st) and Sweden (2^nd)'s performance reflects the fact that both countries are leaders in all pillars of the GII. The United Kingdom (3^rd) has a well-balanced innovation performance (ranking 4th in both input and output), in spite of a relatively low level of growth in labor productivity. The United States (5^th) continues to benefit from its strong education base (especially in terms of top-rank universities), and has seen strong increases in software spending and employment in knowledge-intensive services. Mauritius is leading in Sub-Saharan Africa and ranked 53^rd globally while Uganda tops the East African countries and ranked 3^rd in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Coherent strategies

The GII is a recognition of the key role that innovation serves as a driver of economic growth and prosperity. It is also an acknowledgement of the need for a broad horizontal vision of innovation that is applicable to both developed and emerging economies, with the inclusion of indicators that go beyond the traditional measures of innovation such as the level of research and development in a the country. The GII is therefore a valuable benchmarking tool to facilitate public-private dialogue, whereby policymakers, business leaders and other stakeholders can evaluate progress on a continual basis.

Kenya intends to become a knowledge-led economy wherein, the creation, adaptation and use of knowledge will be among the most critical factors for rapid economic growth. Experience from countries such as South Africa, Senegal, Ireland,  China and Chile illustrates that rapid progress can be made over relatively short periods of time by pursuing coherent strategies  and building the capabilities to create, access, and use knowledge. The positive effect of technological advances is reduction in the cost of transport and communication and created new opportunities for business and employment through the innovation output.

Innovation is a dominant factor for a country’s competitiveness. It fuels a countries growth, drives future success and is the engine that allows a country to sustain her viability in a global economy. Kenya must be able to create and commercialize a stream of new products and processes that extend the technology frontier. One way to get changes to take hold is to give recognition to original ideas thus creating a culture of innovation. Once a critical innovation threshold is reached investment money continues to fuel the engine, successful talent attracts more talent, and the cycle of innovation becomes endless.

For Kenya to improve its ranking, we should walk the talk on supporting innovators to be competitive internationally. Retain, attract and generate talent and combine them with local talent. We need to increase funding for the sector and strengthen the Public Private Partnership. It is also important to provide venture capital to fund incubation and start-ups for viable innovations.

We need to support and encourage the development of strong Intellectual Property (IP) protection system by filing patents and licenses domestically and internationally, maintaining strong internal policies and processes for protecting their own IP and establish a strong national IP regime.

The Kenyan Government committed itself to allocate 2% of its GDP to fund research in the country starting 2013/2014 financial year which is a good step forward for a low-income country. Highly ranked countries in the GII like Singapore, Switzerland, and Sweden contribute 2.1%, 2.9% and 3.4% of their GDP respectively and score higher in indicators including; political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory and business environment, knowledge and technological outputs. There is need for us to improve in this areas so that we can compete with them.

E-LEARNING CAN BRING THE WORLD TO KENYA SCHOOLS

The world is moving at an unimaginable speed in the area of information use and dissemination. The use of Information Technology, knowledge and information can be transferred and cross-fertilized in real time. Hence, the need to pay attention to the way information technology has changed the educational sector through the internet.

The use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet in learning is seen as a means to improve accessibility, efficiency and quality of learning by facilitating access to information resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration. Nonetheless, by the middle of the 20th century the growth in technology and applications even in the field of education became unavoidable to be ignored. The world of technology continued to grow and today the whole world has become a global village. By the beginning of the 21st millennium educational technology has stretched educational boundaries and created new ones on a daily basis. One of these new and rapidly expanding boundaries is e-learning which is offering tremendous advantage to education sector.

E-learning in this sense is the use of network technologies to create, foster, deliver, and facilitate learning, anytime and anywhere. It is also the use of internet and digital technologies to create experiences that educate a young generation and is of great help when they grow up. It has the potential to revolutionize the way we teach and how we learn.

E-learning has therefore become a new paradigm and philosophy in education with a mission to serve as a development platform for present-day society based on knowledge. The TVET, University Education, and Basic Education acts advocate for the use of ICT in education.

 It is evident that the concept of e-learning is considered to be very attractive as a new learning model whose effect will be a positive one to the development of education in Kenya with all its potentialities.

In addition to that, there is need to build and fully equip Science labs in secondary schools in each county. We must realize that it is difficult to get the best result from poor facilities. This is why laboratory facilities in our schools must be revamped to foster e-learning.

E-learning must be built on infrastructural background with highly effective internet connectivity to succeed. More so, to guarantee an effective learning system it is therefore, fundamental to implement self-sustaining Internet and computer training, which will eventually allow teachers and learners to keep pace with latest development and technologies.

Kenya should ensure the availability of accessible, efficient, reliable, and affordable ICT services. The government to encourage the use of ICT in schools, colleges, universities, Technical & Vocational Education and Training  (TVET) and other educational institutions in the country so as to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

There are strategies that must be used to promote the development of e-learning resources such as the need to facilitate public-private partnerships to mobilize resources in order to support e-learning initiatives, promote the development of an integrated e-learning curriculum to support ICT in education and promote distance education and virtual institutions particularly in higher education and training.

The government should ensure that ICT in education sector is easily accessed, properly funded and adequate. Also, the cost of development of interactive e-learning contents should be considered. We should also embrace ICT as a medium of instruction and management tool, build capacity for teachers, and include ICT Curriculum at ECD and primary levels.  

E-learning will ensure that training is enhanced through use of multiple media and trainee interaction and hence boosting the level of education as well as linking learners to other content, experts, and peers.

The power of ICT to connect teachers and learners to the acquisition of knowledge they need wherever that knowledge exists is harnessed through e-learning hence it’s the right way for this country.

Moreover, we must prioritize mainstreaming ICTs into the teaching and learning processes in the current Kenyan education system. There is also need for alternative and innovative methods of learning, which can make education available beyond lecture halls in Kenya, not limited to a particular time, pace, or space.

REAPING MORE FROM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN EAST AFRICA THROUGH HARMONY

The Eastern Africa region is greatly endowed.  What with the diversity of resources including natural, agricultural, big water bodies and increasing human capital. Yet amidst all these wealth we still face the challenges of food insecurity, climate change access to education, clean water, and affordable energy and health services.

Competitiveness is increasingly important to succeed in the global economy and not only for individual countries but also for regions.  We now have economic blocks. It is widely appreciated that investment and application of science and technology is key to solve these challenges and more besides promoting socioeconomic development. How then do we harness ST&I for region competitiveness?

Through concerted efforts, East Africa region must improve its competitiveness to enhance the region’s economy and improve the living standard of estimated 148 million inhabitants and not be left behind in the globalization wave. We cannot afford to work in isolation; it’s high time we realize that our boundaries should not separate us and must stimulate economic growth by sharing the available resources. Thought the different member states have laid down strategies and road maps on where they would like to be economically, politically and socially, it is also important to think regionally.

                The East Africa Community formed in 1948, collapsed in 1977 and re established in 1999 should be strengthened and actualized so that we do no not have it as a treaty on paper alone.  The good will is there as science and technology is one of the modalities laid out in the treaty as an important component to regional integration and fostering economic development. The East Africa Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO) hosted by Rwanda was further established to promote regional development and application of research Science and Technology.

What modalities will ensure that the integration spirit is deepened and that we all achieve a win win situation through the treaty?

                 I believe that human resource development and especially in science and technology could help the region leap frog to catch up with the rest of the world.  This can be achieved through harmonized capacity building programmes.  The region boosts of an Interuniversity Council of East Africa with membership of Universities in the 5 member states. The Council needs to be strengthened to offer capacity building opportunities across the region through harmonized programmes and develop competitive world class universities. Also the establishment of centres of excellence will help curb prevalent brain drain in this region and also attract enrolments from other parts of the continent.  Integration will also be deepened though student and faculty exchange programmes.

Another critical area is research. Research in Agriculture, Human and animal health, mineral exploration besides other critical areas can be much effective when resources are pooled together.  In this regard, we need to benchmark with each other, share our experience and expertise, infrastructure and facilities. This is the only way we can enhance the application of research outputs into goods and services and foster innovation. Likewise it is easier to attract international funding.

Having highlighted on the vast resources available to this great region, I believe that we can market ourselves better as a block rather than going it alone as individual countries. Therefore we must endeavor to increase competitiveness of exports from this region through value addition.

  

Partnerships will help us avoid duplication of efforts and maximize the utilization o available resources, infrastructure and expertise to fast track development in the Eastern block. It is therefore imperative that we enhance existing fora for cooperation and examine the need for new mechanisms in order to improve the coordination and information sharing process. We indeed have a lot to learn from each other and fora that link scientists and policy makers in the region must be encouraged to bring in the diversity of ideas through dialogue sharing and make science technology and innovation impact felt in the lives of our inhabitants.

Promoting the spirit of undugu and brotherhood is the sure way of ensuring concerted efforts and investments towards sustainable socioeconomic development in this great region.

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WE  NEED TO EDUCATE THE SOCIETY ON GENETIC MODIFICATION TECHNOLOGY

There is a growing debate about the potential value of modern biotechnology, and in particular of genetically modified organisms in helping to achieve benefits and opportunities envisioned in food security, health, alternative sources of energy, safe environment and industrial grow. The challenge facing policy makers is not only to understand what genetically modification (GM) technology can do but also to establish the threats this technology presents. While, the potential of GM technology is enormous, there are 3 critical issues: first, whether or not the GM technologies offer sustainable food security option; second, what the implications are for biosafety in human health and well-being; and third, the extent of existing capacity to undertake research, effectively detect, monitor and evaluate GM products and their use. The challenge for policy makers is how to respond to the uncertainty about relative opportunities and genuine concerns on perceived threats posed by GM technologies.

Biotechnology has been in existence for decades. The technology uses principles and techniques that have been practiced for thousands of years such as production of beer, wine, bread, yoghurt and cheese. Traditional animal and plant breeding techniques are also a form of pre-industrial biotechnology. The modern biotechnology becomes special since it makes the above processes faster and more precise. Researchers can take a single gene from a plant or animal cell and insert it into another plant or animal cell of a different species (commonly known as transgenic). In the natural settings this will take several years to happen through mutations and is what is known as evolution. Modern biotechnology therefore brings changes that occur slowlyduring evolution in traditional selective breeding to a faster and more specific way.  New species of plants and animals are produced by natural modification during reproduction and accumuleover many generations.

In compliance with the International Conventions and Treaties, Kenya has also set a firm legal systems and frameworks to safeguard her biodiversity and safety of her people and environment as modern biotechnology research and development progresses in the Country.  The evidence is by the enactment of Biosafety Bill into law in 2009; Establishment of the National Biosafety Authority to regulate activities of GMOs in 2010; Appointment of the NBA Board, 2010 for oversight on safe research and application of modern biotechnology in Kenya and Development and gazettment of Biosafety regulations on contained use, environmental release, Import, export and transit and labelling in 2012. It is important to state that research on GMOs in Kenya operate under these regulations and indeed the Kenyan researchers not only adhere to the international laws to which Kenya is signatory but also observe Kenyan regulations concerning the research, use and importation of GMO products.

Modified living organisms result in products such as drugs, vaccines, food and feeds. Modern Biotechnology techniques and products applicable in the health sector that may be of value in developing countries include, molecular diagnostics, recombinant vaccines, vaccine and drug delivery techniques, sequencing pathogens, genomes, microbicides, bioinformatics, recombinant therapeutic proteins and combinatorial chemistry. Other areas of modern biotechnology that do not necessarily involve genetic engineering include the use of enzymes and bacteria in a wide range of applications, such as: waste management, industrial production, food production, remediation of contaminated land. The underlying principle of the production and use of genetically modified organism (GMO) products is in the safety of their users be they human or animals. For this reason both laboratory and field testing during development are highly controlled and subjected to required regulatory rigors under both international and national laws.

Kenya has invested in research and development in modern Biotechnology. For example KARI and  KEMRI have projects in modern biotechnology producing products and delivery of services.  The Centre for Biotechnology Research and Development (CBRD) of KEMRI include 5 research laboratories, all equipped and mandated to undertake basic and biotechnology-related research on human diseases in Kenya, with the overall goal to contribute in the improvement of human health and welfare.

Globally many GM crops have been commercialized in more than 29 countries with a total acreage of 395 million by 2011. These include, Maize, Soybean, Cotton, potato, Canola, Tomato, Beetroots, Papaya, Squash, Rice, alfalfa. The traits that have been included in most of these crops are mainly pest disease or herbicide resistance, and nutritional enrichment (Biofortication). Kenya has not yet commercialized any GM crop but have several crops at various stages of development by KARI in collaboration with local and International partners. Some of the crops include: Bt cotton to be commercialized in 2014; Drought tolerant maize (Water efficient Maize for Africa-WEMA)  under confined field trial (CFT) at KARI Kiboko; Virus resistant Cassava at KARI Alupe and Mtwapa field stations, Cassava enhanced with protein, Vit A, Zinc and Iron under trials (CFT) in KARI Alupe, Sorghum with enhanced protein, Vit A, Zinc and Iron at KARI Kiboko under  trials (CFT) , Nitrogen Efficient Maize (IMAS) whose  confined field trials are targeted to start  in 2013. In livestock sector, ILRI in Collaboration with KARI are studying possibilities of producing a cow  with tolerance to trypanosomiasis; Recombinant viral vaccine for Rift valley fever, Lumpy skin disease, in cattle, Sheep and Goat and is targeted for trials in 2013.

Application of biotechnology on human health is accepted the world over as source for cheap but safe generic drugs. The principle for drugs production remain basically the same even with food crops involving rigorous laboratory testing and stringent laboratory and field safety studies before regulatory authorities can allow their use in both humans and animals. There are a number of drugs based on monoclonal antibodies for treating various diseases such as rituximab for B-cell lymphomas, trasfuzumab (for Her-2 positive breast cancer) which are produced by GM technology. Vaccines include Hepatitis B, new a cellular pertussis, pneumococcal, meningococcal, staphylococcal vaccine and Recombinant DNA vaccine for HIV (trials). Hormones include insulin for management of diabetes, tamoxifen for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) for management of infertility in women, growth hormones in meat production (Livestock and fish).

The recent reports linking GMOs to Cancer in the rat model has attracted a lot of critique globally and is alarmist to say the least. Kenya has not yet commercialized any GMO crops, but that notwithstanding, countries that commercialized the GMO crops over 20 years ago do not have high cancer prevalence as is being reported in the country. Currently, Cancer is estimated to be the third leading cause of death in Kenya, after infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases it is unlikely that this has any association use of GMO products. In many cases, these cancer have been associated with the rapidly changing lifestyle that our people have adopted, the high infectious agents that predispose the population to high risk human papilloma and HIV viruses, high malnutrition among many maladies. Given that Kenya is largely a grain deficient nation, safe application of modern biotechnology in food production should not be scuttled on the altar of un-informed public opinion but should be based on sober and structured research-based discussions. Otherwise the country risk of jeopardizing research, conflict and drought relief as well as benefits that accrues from GMO technology including drought tolerance and bio-fortification among others.It is important therefore to assure Kenyans that just like most generic drugs are safe, most agricultural products developed following the laid down due processes and in observation of the internationally accepted human biosafety regulations are also safe for their use. In my opinion more public awareness id required and society must be educated on these sciences to make a decision on what to consume. Above all we must demistify such sciences, but must not be afraid to embrace it tackle food insecurity.

  SCIENCE INDICATORS AND WHAT THEY MEAN IN DEVELOPMENT

It is important to measure performance of any sector through indicators.

Science, technology and innovation indicators measure a country's performance and tell the public and the policy makers the state of science and technology in the economy and the society. This indicators as developed by the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development(OECD) and other international organisations include; Science and Engineering graduates, human resource in science and technology, scientific journal articles, patents, and R&D expenditure.

Research produces new knowledge and is also expected to shape policy. The R&D to GDP ratio is an indicator of how much a nation's economic activities is devoted to innovation through R&D. Publications in journals and  articles enables the  results of research to be disseminated to a wider society.

There is need to document our research work. A lot of research work is going on in our Universities and Research institutions yet we have very few publications to show for it.  What we have is fragmented information rarely would we know how many experts we have in a certain field at the click of a button as is the case in some countries.

There is a growing need for transparency as everything is now being brought into the public domain necessitated by the New Constitution. I urge my colleagues in the science and research sector to account for tax-payers money set-aside for research through publications and innovations which scientific output into solutions.

ST&I Indicators will help the Government develop evidence based policy and understand the state of the scientific system as well as encourage the public to engage in the policy debate. Embedding indicators in policy process will involve interaction between policy makers and scientists. Science indicators make it possible for monitoring, benchmarking, foresight and evaluation.

NEPAD is spearheading the development of  common science indicators in Africa under the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) Initiative to allow comparisons among  African countries. The African Innovation Outlook 2010 is an outcome of this initiative and indicates that only a few African countries have substantial scientific output. It also recommends that to be more competitive, we have to increase investment in human capital development, strengthen scientific institutions and also increase funding.

Training on how to improve the process of conducting the ASTII survey and sensitization of importance of such surveys to the institutions concerned with science and technology business will improve subsequent surveys and cases of lack of up-to-date data will be a thing of the past. Indicators will help in identifying gaps that require interventions and areas of capacity building.

NCST has developed an Incentive for publication to encourage Kenyan scientists to increase their contributions to global knowledge by disseminating their research findings through publications.

It is important to measure ST&I performance using indicators for socio-economic transformation. This calls for us to adopt a culture of record-keeping, data collection and develop data banks so that when needed, the information can be quickly retrieved and applied for development.

NEW LAWS TO BUILD HUMAN AND TECHNICAL CAPACITY IN ST&I

As the curtains close on the coalition government, one of the greatest achievements of this government is the numbers of Bills that went through the 10^th Parliament and which breathed life into the new Constitution.  Among the last of these catalogue of bills were three critical bills; Technical Vocational Educational Training (TVET) Bill 2012, University Bill 2012 and the Science, Technology and Innovation Bill (ST&I) 2012. Enactment of these bills into law will not only ensure that all qualified Kenyans access quality technical and university education and therefore ensuring that the country builds a critical mass of skilled human manpower for Research and Development (R&D) that can effectively contribute to needs of labor market but will also go a long way into reorganizing the ST&I sector to make it an effective “enabler” of the Vision 2030 targets.

Kenya's education sector has experienced a lot of admirable achievement especially towards providing free basic education to all. The number of admissions to primary education and secondary education have significantly increased in the last one decade putting a lot of pressure on existing tertiary colleges and university that are to absorb those that graduate from primary and secondary schools. The technical institutions such as polytechnic have been highly hit by the explosion of students given that for a long time they have not had adequate instructors, workshops and equipment to conduct their training hereby compromising on the quality of their work. To address these shortcomings the Government enacted the TIVET Act 2012 which will basically ensure that technical institutions offering middle level  certificate and diploma training have the capacity to offer quality training programs that addresses the requirement of our labor market. The Act puts forward frameworks on standardization, quality assurance with a harmonized assessment and certification systems to regulate the quality of training and graduands that come from this institutions and also establishes the TVET Authority to regulate and advice on TVET and also to ensure access equity and relevance of TVET training in line with the Vision 2030. More important, the problem of lack of instructors and equipment to conduct training is solved through this Act by establishing a TVET funding board to source and provide resources that are required for the smooth operation of public colleges offering technical training. Overall the Act will ensure that well equipped technical colleges offer relevant training  required by most employers in the private sectors are established in each constituency. This will significantly contribute towards imparting technical and entrepreneurial skills required to make our youth more competitive and job creators and not job seekers.

 The thrust of the University Act 2012 is to provide an effective regulatory framework for developing University education in Kenya through agencies such as Commission for University Education, the University Funding Board and the Kenya University Admission Board. The Act clearly stipulates the role and functions of these agencies, all focused towards improving the quality and access of university education and increasing Kenya’s competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. At the moment, Kenya’s education system seems disorganized with very many deserving students from high school missing on University opportunities due to lack of chances and resources that can support their education in these institutions. For a long time, University admission in our country has been pegged on bed spaces and lecture hall capacity. Kenya has made tremendous progress in improving its University education despite the myriad challenges it has faced in last 49 years as a nation. From only one University College, the Kings College, now University of Nairobi in 1963, the country have grown to 54 universities. Among these are 10 full public universities will another 12 awaiting award of charter by March this year to bring to 22 the number of full public universities and 10 university college with the remaining 24 being private universities and university colleges. This expansion is meant to help build a solid human resource base that the country needs to leap frog into the knowledge based-economy and achieve the targets of the Vision 2030.

As a country keen on becoming a knowledge-based middle income economy in the next 17 years, Kenya must not compromise on the quality of skills that its training institutions impart on the trainees. Universities must therefore develop an all round curriculum that will seek to develop the trainees into not only skilled persons in the areas of training but into responsible citizens of integrity that have the self-drive to make things done. This call for Universities to adopt more flexible approaches to their training and ways of doing business. The University Professors must therefore come down from their scholarly towers and touch base with consumers of the knowledge they generate through their researches. One of the proven ways of being "practical" don  is through program that ensure that professors are attached to industry through University-Industry linkages in a way that allow diffusion of ideas and technology from both sides and therefore reducing the incubation period for ideas to be transformed into products or services. Private Public Partnerships (PPPs) with potential to create an enabling environment in which there is free exchange of ideas and consultative approaches to common problems must therefore be encouraged.  More importantly, universities must walk the road of basic research. It has been shown that there is no better place to do this than in the universities. The world over, Universities are becoming hubs of innovation and fertile ground where the private sector fish for ideas, test them in laboratories and develop innovative prototypes which can be picked by venture capitalists for transformation into products, processes and services for wealth creation. Such an arrangement lead to conglomeration of businesses and development of Science parks with high concentration of related expertise with immense contribution to the gross national product. This is the vision Kenyan university systems should have. It is quite encouraging to see industrialist with proven experience within  the private sector such as Dr. Manu Chandaria coming up to head institutions of higher learning to provide practical guidance to develop and manage technical universities of the future. More private sectors players should come up and be appointed to such positions because this is one of the ways to break the silo mentality between the public and private sectors and between university and industry. The Government must however ensure that our public Universities are provided with adequate resources that can enable Scientists and Professors engage in meaningful basic research and industrial development for them to compete and bench mark with the best of the world in their fields in contributing to the growth of new knowledge.

 With the enactment of the University Act 2012, the horizon looks promising. The proposed University Funding Board that the new Act will create has its work cut for itself. The agency will have to burn midnight oil to look for new sources of external funding to ensure that Kenyan public universities do not only boast of modernized learning infrastructure but also have adequate well skilled human resource capacity with cutting edge teaching and research facilities to deliver lessons and conduct ground-breaking research. In this digital age, universities need to invest in e-resources such as e-library and e-lectures and not rely on outdated reference books and “brown” notes. Such ambitious strategic planning however need huge investment from the Government and the Universities themselves if they have to be more competitive. Towards this end, the new ST&I Act will provide the necessary policy advice and strive to promote, coordinate and enhance programs that will contribute to improving Kenya’s research and innovation system. The ST&I Act  expressly  transforms National Council for Science and Technology into the Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation to advice, promote, coordinate and regulate research, and establishes the National Research fund to finance research and the Kenya innovation Agency to promote innovations in the country. Taken together with the recent Cabinet approval of 2% GDP allocation to ST&I, Kenyan scientists and university dons interested in research will have more resources to make their contribution to national socio-economic development through research.

Lastly, the kind of resources that the three Acts will provide must be managed well to ensure that they provide the expected results. In this regard, there is need for leaders honored to be trustees of such resources to shown high degrees of integrity, accountability and exemplify visionary and transformative leadership in the way they lead these institutions to realise their mandates. In every move we make toward developing a critical mass of well trained human resource and conducting research that can impact Wanjiku’s life now and in the long term we must forever remain in touch with the spirit of the constitution in terms of addressing the common Kenyan problems. If planned and executed well, the TIVET, University Act and ST&I Act 2012 will be a sure path for Kenya to become a prosperous middle income economy with a sustainable annual growth rate of 10% through Science, Technology and Innovation. It is incumbent upon us to also reflect in the kind of leaders that we elect to the next Parliament in a peaceful manner but we need to consider putting into office leaders who will move the process forward by fully operationalizing the Acts. 

 EXPLOITING E- RESOURCES TO EXPAND EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

Information Communication Technology (ICT) is recognized as one of the enablers of the Kenya’s Vision 2030 and is expected to accelerate the rate of knowledge generation and acquisition, its dissemination and application which is a prerequisite for our socioeconomic development.  Technology has revolutionized teaching, learning and research and more so with the advent of the internet creating a wealth of information resource in the World Wide Web better known as e-resources. There are now various modes of media for learning, making it more interesting.

E-resources enable the breaking down of barriers to access to information enabling dissemination of information through public databases and open-access journals and books. E-resources facilitate academic discourse, avails timely information necessary for decision making and avails current material for learning and research.

Open access maximises the scholarly benefits that arises from research and provides the necessity for its dissemination and application for economic development. Through open access, educational content and research results can be accessed online without legal, technical or financial barriers. Open access also increases access to knowledge which offers opportunities to foster collaboration and interdisciplinary research. It also benefits the researcher by bringing his work to the public domain. Open access can also lead to research- driven policymaking through improved decision making at all levels.

Libraries all over the world are turning to electronic resources. Kenyan libraries can utilize the internet to revolutionize knowledge acquisition in learning and research institutions by educating and training their users to develop their information literacy skills in order to easily and effectively locate, filter, retrieve and synthesize information online.

The Ranking of Higher Education Institutions by Webometrics assesses useful information about the performance of these Institutions largely based on their web presence and impact. African Universities in general and Kenyan Universities in particular can improve their performance in the rankings through the following strategies;

Building digital libraries by converting print mode resources to electronic mode. Purchasing access licenses to commercial databases, e-books and e-journals to their libraries, developing Institutional e-repositories and databanks and have their scholars upload their books or dissertations in them, link their libraries to open-access e resources providing wider readership to their users not forgetting to give author’s control over the integrity of their work through proper acknowledgement and citation.

In the recent past, there has been an increasing need for public funded research results to be in the public domain for accountability purposes and the requirement in the Constitution of right to information.  In cognizant of this, the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation is keen to establish its website as a one stop shop by establishing an online-library with abstracts from reports, publications and e-books which are regularly updated as well as establishing a database of experts in Science, Technology and Innovation. The ST&I Research Grant application process has also gone online.

Making the transition to digital libraries requires synergic action from all stakeholders including Research funders, Universities, research institutions, libraries, scholarly associations and publishing houses.

The web is a powerful scholarly communication tool with the potential to showcase talent and attract funding and resources. Most importantly, Universities and Research Institutions must recognize that e resources are the mode of education of the future as well as the gateway of transferring the knowledge they generate to the whole Society.  

 STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS THE SHORTAGE OF TEACHING STAFF IN OUR UNIVERSITIES

For the last 10 years, this country has made significant gains in the education sector especially within the basic education sub sectors with free primary and subsidized high school education programs. These programs have led to a tremendous increase in the enrollment of students in primary and secondary schools resulting in the proportional increase in the demand for chances at college and university education in the country. For this reason, the government recently increased the number of public universities from 7 to 22 in preparation for a grandiose plan to build the required human capacity required to drive national socio-economic development. Though a remarkable initiative worthy of commendation, the shortage of of qualified lecturers and the quality of university education that our universities are offering need to be handled carefully as a matter of priority. The Public Universities Institutional Audits released by the Commission for University Education recently made public worrying trends within the sector with the revelation that our universities have only a few lecturers with doctorate degrees and that most teaching is done by people with master’s degree qualification. Already, the rush by new universities to tap into existing qualified manpower pool that exist in the country is already sending alarms that things may not be well for old universities and research institutes who hold  a significant  pool of quality scholars and scientists. If left unchecked, this will further compromise many issues not only in our universities but the entire research sector.

How then do we address this important national challenge? As I have said in many forums, our university administrative systems must start to think of innovative mechanisms that will ensure that they develop and retain quality human manpower if they have to offer quality training. Allow me to suggest a few short and long term strategies that could alleviate the problem of low PhD-qualified lecturers.

In the short term, universities will need to develop crush programs that will ensure they attract and retain qualified manpower for teaching. Such programs may involve offers of lucrative part time positions to those within the public and private sectors with at least PhD level training or initiating to offer their services as ‘professors or researchers in practice’ transferring their long years experiences in public and private service as lecturers. Universities also need to introduce competitive sabbatical programs for Kenyans and other scholars within the country and in the Diaspora who may be willing to come to Kenyan universities for short periods of 1 semester to teach. More importantly, the universities must ring fence their best, offer them Masters and PhD scholarship to build their own teaching pool. Opening up opportunities for those who have retired from service but who may still be willing to serve on contract could also alleviate the biting shortage of qualified teaching staff in our universities.

Long term strategies to address lack of adequate university teaching staff may involve establishing centers of excellence and research chairs in areas in which there are significant gaps. The centre of excellence should be modeled in ways that will nurture talents at PhD and postdoctoral level in all disciplines. Research chairs will require that the universities set aside a significant amount of research fund that distinguished scientist and scholars can use to conduct research but also offer postgraduate mentorship thereby helping build required quality human resource capacity in the university. In developing such a model, the private sector needs to be looped in to create synergy between the university and the labor market. Involvement of the private sector could also be extended to areas of curriculum development, teaching positions and research partnerships. Even as universities undertake all these initiatives, they must make sure that lecturers are imparted with relevant pedagogical skills through continuous in service training and that quality and relevance of training is not compromised.

Our universities must adopt a vibrant collaborations and linkages model through networks with other Universities in the region and the rest of the world. This will open opportunities for visiting professors to come to our local universities through academic staff exchange programs and also offer our lecturers opportunities to teach in foreign universities. This will not only allow for knowledge exchange and diffusion but will provide a good platform for technology transfer and adoption of best practices that exist in other institutions in the world. Overall, the Universities must take advantage of opportunities of capacity building offered through joint collaborations between Kenya- South Africa, National Commission for Science and Technology and Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Kenya DAAD Scholarship programme for doctorate training, Pan Africa University and other regional capacity building opportunities to increase the number of Kenyan doctorates. This must be well coordinated from the University who should encourage their staff.

It must however be made clear that these programs will require huge resources and strong management and leadership skills. The universities must address issues of working conditions such as better remunerations, clear career growth paths and scholarships among other incentives. It is only through such measures that our universities will minimize challenges of brain drain and moonlighting currently rampant in our universities. Such programs must be clearly stipulated to reduce management-staff problems that are the source of university strife among the teaching staff and university administration. Achievement of the desired results will therefore call for strong leadership and administrative skills be hinged on right policies. Lastly, higher education institutions must be strengthened to respond to societal needs and challenges through new academic programmes and, innovative pedagogical methods centered on problem-solving. Thus, they must be well staffed and equipped to impact on the society.

 WE MUST MENTOR TO NURTURE RESPONSIBLE YOUNG CITIZENS

Education is a fundamental right must be provided to every Kenyan child according to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the Kenya Constitution 2010.

Besides classroom instruction, it is equally important to offer life lessons that we cannot share during class time that will help bring up all rounded students.  I applaud the great efforts that Equity Group Foundation in partnership with The Master card Foundation, the United States for International Development (USAID) and the Department for International Development (DFID) - UK have gone into in organizing Annual education and Leadership Congress now for the third year. I was honored to be invited in the ongoing congress at Kenyatta University that brought together approximately 5,000 scholars drawn from secondary schools and Universities under Equity Bank’s scholarship programme as a mentor.  I would like to share some principles learnt with other young Kenyans who might not have had the chance to participate in the congress.

It is important for students to take 100% responsibility of their lives. They cannot afford to continually lament that it is because of the parents or teachers that they are not performing well.  They should have control of each and every detail regarding their education. It is equally important to have a clear picture in your mind of why you are where you are at any time. When in school, realize that your main goal is to gain knowledge and everything else should come second. Set your goals right, know what you want to do, and to become and never settle for less. Your goals must be SMART!

Believe that it can be achieved. It has been said that we can have or achieve anything as far as we can visualize it.  You first achieve in your mind then believe in yourself that I can achieve it. See yourself the doctor, engineer, pilot you wish to become, and you will ultimately be. Then take action, implement those things laid out in your plan or else your dream will remain a mirage.  Know what you have to do, focus and avoid interruptions. Hard work may take you to the top but only discipline will keep you there. You might be the best student but without discipline you will not remain the best for long.  

Another important principle is persistence. You may have tried and failed but remember that quitters never win.  We need to keep at it until we are good at it if not the best.  Failure has been infact described finding out one way of not doing something. A good example that comes to mind is the Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16^th President who never gave up vying for presidency even after losing 8 elections and is known as one of the greatest Presidents in America’s history.

Peer mentoring is very important. Interaction between best performing schools and the ones who do not do so well through foras such as debates, quizzes and sports will help them sharpen each other.

The older generation has an enormous task and they are needed now more than ever to seat with the students and be first hand examples of what education can help one achieve. We can seat in the Parents Teacher Association Boards, or form mentoring teams to enlighten our young on both loop -holes they can avoid and opportunities they can utilize to better their lives.

We need to continue building more schools, provide learning materials, and support bright but needy students by offering them bursaries and scholarships. Of paramount importance is to guide them by being good role models as they look up to us.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ASPIRING GOVERNORS FROM THE COAST

Dear aspiring Governors from the Coast region

Allow me to share with you the voices of the people from the coastal region. As they say, the voice of the people in the voice of God and it is important to be in sync with the feelings and the aspiration of the people you wish to lead. During the recent County consultative forum for the 2^nd medium term Plan 2013-2017, stakeholders from the 6 counties identified five priority areas for each of the counties. During the consolidation of the views, six meetings were held at different times and venues. In the meetings, two priority areas namely, education and infrastructure were cited as priority development areas in all the six counties, health and sanitation rated as important in four counties while land ownership/security, agriculture and food security and employment creation rated by half of the counties are being top in their development priorities. These views might appear obvious to the general public and those seeking elective decision-making positions such as gubernatorial and senatorial offices, but my advice to those in the running is to seriously give some thought to the seven areas cited in those forums. Please note that the citizens are already aware of the challenges and are now asking for solutions through policies, strategies and implementation roadmaps that work.

For example, in education, the region lags behind during the performance of national examinations and their plea is to  build early childhood education schools, deploy more qualified teachers, set up more adult education centers, build special needs  schools, get more middle level colleges, improve learning infrastructure and set up funds for the poor students. As a person’s coming from the regions, they sent me to ask you to address these challenges.

As for infrastructure, they would like to see better roads, electricity in the rural areas, improved on ICT and telecommunication, railways as a means of transport. Three counties were equally concerned on issues of health, water and sanitation, landownership and agriculture/food security. Concerning health, the question is whether you will be able to increase the number of health facilities, employ more trained personnel, acquire more ambulances, improve sewage systems, drill more bore holes, improve and increase water treatment plants, scale up community health strategies. Other were very specific, such as the view that Msambweni hospital to referral hospital and equip Hola general hospital to level 5. Their requests make a lot of sense, don’t they? I noticed some of the areas are under national government. How will you influence?

I heard them speak loudly about land ownership and that in about 50 years after independence, they are still squatters in their ancestral land. They said that they have  hope that the implementation of national land policy will address their concerns. They request that if you come into the office of the governor, you would influence  setting up of  land commission office at the county and grassroots to help address the rampant land problem. They further indicated to me that the issue of land ownership also affect agriculture/ food security matter. But specifically, they would want to see more education towards modern farm methods irrigation, subside on farm inputs, create and improve food storage facilities, revive farmer cooperatives and stalled agricultural projects and develop the livestock sector and value chain in the agricultural production systems. In some areas, the people would want to know how you would address marketing of their produce, wildlife/human conflicts, increase inland fish farming. 

Three counties were concerned about security and suggested that security improvement should range from improvement on community policing to increase in the number of uniformed officers. They went further to state that police stations need to be provided with transport facilities, more police posts established and the terms and conditions of service improved. In all regions especially in major towns in the region, they are concerned about the future of the youth, the drug abuse problem and ask that you should develop programs to combat drug abuse besides setting up rehabilitation centers.

Waheshimiwa, your job is cut out for you. What you need are clear indicators on how we can measure your performance. Because you would like to get an excellent score and not just good, may I suggest that you improve on crime intelligence, use of technology in the police force to combat crime. Think of desalination of water for household and irrigated agriculture. Consider the potential of the LAPPSET project and the port of Mombasa and how the Coast region and the entire county can benefit from the over 300 nautical miles of Indian Ocean resources, the mining in Kwale and Taita. Take advantage of the newly established Universities and colleges to build human resource resources for home consumption and export to other counties, revive Mariakani milk, irrigation projects, Bixa enterprises, and cashew nuts, strengthen the coconut sector, just to mention a few. Ypu be innovative and develop a clear strategic and business plan with log frame to do monitoring and evaluation on yearly basis. Ensure you have county business with clear indicators and budget projections. Last but not least, consult widely and take full advantage of those who know, be a transformational  leader and work in a team. Never forget that you can use technology to enhance your performance.  Above all, show how you will address these issues and not what the issues are because the people have spoken and they know what they want. Good luck Governor.

Yours faithful voter

Prof. Shaukat Abdulrazak

CEO of the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation

HOW TWO PERCENT OF THE GDP WOULD BE UTILIZED IN RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

The parliament approval of 2% GDP annually allocation to the Science, Technology and Innovation (ST&I) sector is a boost to the sector that will fast track the transition of the country into a knowledge based economy.  This is such a noble and timely decision by the Government that will place our country in the same league if not ahead of the fastest developing middle income economies such as Malaysia and South Korea which were at the same level like  Kenya in the1960’s. This calls for serious thinking on strategies on implementation. I would expect the researchers to conduct research that will have positive impact on issue of food security, health, environment and industrilization. Equally, we must do cutting edge basic research to contribute to knowledge at national and international level.

For Kenya to leverage on ST&I for socio-economic impact there is need to heavily invest in two crucial areas, namely quality skilled human capacity building and cutting-edge research infrastructure development, such as in areas of health (malaria, cancer), agricultural sciences including the biotechnology, renewable energy, engineering, marine science and space science, just to mention a few. The ST&I can only drive the achievement of the Vision 2030, if is well developed; with adequate well trained technical human capacity to work in our industries and adequate postgraduate training to drive the research and innovation agenda in our research institutions, universities and industries.

It has been indicated that this more that what the sector needs. In my opinion the two percent is very seasonable in support of the sector that cuts across all sectors, and also being the foundation of V2030. Take for example, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the EU countries propose for at least 3% of GDP to be allocated to R&D. We must remove skepticism on the use of these resources. Kenya’s GDP is  approximately 36.1 billion US dollars which translates to about 63 billion Kenya shillings according to the current exchange rates.

An over view of the national ST&I landscape reveal that Kenya has about 15 public research institutions and 22 public universities and around 50 public technical institutions. These institutions need to be fully supported in terms of building modern research facilities to enable them conduct meaningful research and contribute to competitive R&D for national development.  Most of these research institutions apart from those supported by international agencies such as ILRI and ICIPE, lack cutting edge facilities significantly denying the scientists working in these facilities the opportunity to do quality research that leads to innovation and even discovery. Besides, inadequate research funds to allow them explore the broad world of basic and applied research.

On the other hand, it is important to note that some of the reasons behind brain drain include lack of adequate Grants for research and not very attractive remunerations for scientists and researchers. Conducting research requires massive investment with good pay packages to the scientists if they have to devote all their time to research.  In Kenya, the total annual university research budget hardly exceeds 20 million Kenya Shillings in most of universities. The story is almost the same in our public research institutions which almost entirely depend on donor collaborators for their research support. Take for example, Kenya Medical Research Institute, while their budget is about 7Billion annually, developing partners pump in 6Billion.

The National Research Foundation yet to be established will cater for research and capacity building needs for the Research Institutions and Universities in the country. It is therefore a glaring truth that if the research institutions and  universities have to be provided with adequate research infrastructure, Kenya would need even more funds as we expand to develop the facilities in these institutions before addressing issues of research funding and capacity building.  

The number of applications received by NCSTI for the ST&I grants indicates that there is a growing interest by Kenyans to conduct research. For example, in the last call focused on projects in “Water, health and sanitation”, 207 applicants expressed their interest for the 15 million Kenyan shillings grant.  If it were possible to fund all the applicants, it would cost about 3.1 billion Kenyan shillings for one year only. This is besides the other research support given to Women researchers, PhD and MSc students, Post doctorates as well as support for innovations, Research facilities and Symposia and Conferences.

It is important to appreciate that for Kenya to leapfrog and catch up with the best in the world, we need to heavily invest in ST&I. The move by the Government to allocate 2% annual GDP to the sector is not only laudable but the right step towards actualizing the Vision 2030 and making Kenya a knowledge-based economy. We however must be pragmatic in our planning and prioritization.  The NCSTI is committed to ensure that these resources will be put into good use through a mechanism in which institutions will identify their competitive niches and grow into centers of excellence through Government facilitation from the allocation so as to minimize duplication and wastage of resources and maximize on output and societal impact. Given their geographical and regional spread, our universities and research institutions, will open up counties and allow exploitation of indigenous resources in all parts of the country through R&D.