Science, scientists' work and Africa's growth trajectories

In the shoes of a lay man's rhetoric, last week I asked a question: "Is science and scientists' work from Africa helping drive the continent's development processes?

The expected answer was either: YES or NO. INDIFFERENT, was to be included as a third option during analysis. The inclusion of indifference was aimed at capturing the unexpressed opinion of persons who would have accessed the question but chose not to respond to it. Given that one's choice of not choosing among the available options was to be interpreted, no remainders soliciting for responses/ participation were deemed necessary.

Respondents: The question attracted 628 impressions, which notably included: 1) company founders and chief executive officers; 2) agronomists; 3) lecturers; 4) professors; 5) research assistants, and; 6) technical specialists. These were mainly working within NGO, farming, environmental service, researchers, higher education, food production, oil and energy, accounting and civic and social organization.

The above structure of the persons reached by the question was, considered quiet impressive, because it included the relevant constellations that would ordinarily be expected to either nurture science and scientists or move the creation and use of science.

Results: By the close of the survey time (25 - July to 1 - August, 2021) 13 persons had directly responded to the question (9 = yes and 4 = no). These included, six (6) agriculturalists, four (4) environmentalists, and one (1) respondent each from data analysis, civil engineering and accountant professional. Thus, prior to inclusion of INDIFFERENT category, sixty nine (69%) of the respondents perceived science and scientists' work from Africa to be helping drive the continent's development processes. Only, 31% thought science and scientists' work did not have visibility in the development struggles of Africa.

Given that the question was accessed by 628 persons, 615 persons (628-13) were INDIFFERENT. Taken together, the results of this question suggest that 97.92% of the persons who accessed the question were indifferent, 1.43% had a positive opinion while 0.64% did not perceive science to be visibility in the development struggles of Africa.

Interpretation: To interpret the above results, I would like to create and utilize a superficial scenario, that involves a judge, a seven-person jury, and a prisoner's life at stack. In this scenario, after along time of hearing, the judge presents a question to the jury. Members, after hearing all the evidence, - should the prisoner be killed? (Remember you can only choose among three options: 1) die = yes; 2) live = no and; 3) abstain = no answer). This means that the prisoner would be killed if the yes counts are more than nos, and saved when the opposite is the case. In such circumstances, a jury member who remains indifferent could be deemed inclined to the side of wanting the prisoner dead. This is particularly so, because by not voting, such as member would have narrowed the necessary magnitude to have the guy killed, because life and death are not equal outcomes. Death is irreversible while a prisoner not killed to day could be killed another time, thus decision is of live is reversible. From this logic it can be argued that by not voting, the indifferents have voted for the prisoner to be killed and if by chance the prisoner was saved from being killed they would not have supported him or her to have life, anyway.

Extending the above logic, the indifference voters in our question regarding science and scientists' work and Africa's development, could and can not be taken as a shy No. This is particularly so, because by not voting the indifferents affirm and express their voice for the continuity of the status quo, and therefore no need to question the existing order. Therefore, it can be concluded that the participants of the survey believe that science and scientists' work in Africa is helping to drive the continent's development processes.

Fitting the results in real context: Science and scientists' work mainly resides in two places in Africa, the university and research institutions. Thus to understanding what is happening with science, let us revisit some of the real world cases (be at liberty to superimpose the scenario to any similar context):

University: If a university graduated 80 PhDs, 300 Masters and 3500 undergraduates, the common understanding would tell us that 380 novel knowledge products have been created from graduate research and at least if well supervised 1500 interesting findings produced by the undergraduate students. The question for me and you would then be, how many of those findings would/ are move(ing) out of those 380 black covered books and 1500 green covered reports to drive development. How many!! All of them, half, a third, how many and I mean for Africa?

Research organizations: For the knowledge created in research organization domain, I would like to use the case of Uganda's National Agricultural Research Institute (NARO), and of-course because of availability of information. This is particularly so because NARO, has taken a proactive concern towards the gap between the magnitude of scientists' work produced and that actually used to drive the development of people and things. That said, my interest is in a highly authentic paper authored by NARO's Tibasaaga and Zawedde (2018) and published by The Uganda Journal of Agricultural science, with its copy rights retained by NARO, suggesting that its contents were worthy the attention. For observations, the paper revealed that only 10% of the farmers were using the novel seed and planting materials produced by NARO (I will reflect on the pitfalls of the paper some day).

In additional, the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Frank Tumwebaze, has recently observed that whereas NARO is expected to spearhead research, "most of its research and the innovations developed don't benefit the ordinary farmers" (Newvision, 25 June 2022). Thus, farmers' perceptions seemed to be aligned with those of Mr. Frank Tumwebaze, the symbollic icon of policy positions on agriculture.

Reconciling the findings of the survey question and Africa's realities: Looking closely at the figures, the opinions expressed in the survey question, (that is, 31% = no against 69% = yes), seem to be inversely, related with the reality as expressed by the users (10% = used against 90% not used) of research product of NARO. This could suggest that there is a dissonance between reality and the perceptions of persons who constitute the community in which science and scientists' work is nested. If the preceding observation is true, then could it be probable that the low visibility of science and scientists' work in development trajectories of Africa, could be connected to imaginary satisfactions from the scientific world that they are doing a great job. So, the scientists could be continuing to do the same thing the same way, thus leading to production of discontinuous and disjointed cutting edge innovations that are void of cutting edge utility (See, How to profit from innovations: Principles for commercializing new ideas). This leaves one to ponder, whether it is not timely to focus on conducting meta-analysis research to know very well how existing research products (in universities and research organizations) constellate around specific themes, how it combines to address specific development opportunities or concerns. This should also help to identify key knowledge and practical gaps around specific issues that multiple research domains, could prioritize to jointly work towards filling.