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A UNITED STATES FUND FOR AFRICAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT 



In response to the needs for self-sustaining and indigenous scientific 

 and technical institutions to support Africa's development, this proposal 

 is offered to create a "United States Fund for African Science and Tech- 

 nology Development" (US FASTD) . This Fund would select strategic opportun- 

 ities for awarding small grants to individual scholars, departments, 

 research institutes, and universities, where a crucial intervention can 

 make the difference, on the one hand, between no research or irrelevant 

 research and, on the other, applied research which makes a genuine contri- 

 bution to the pressing basic human needs and the increased productivity of 

 the society. 



The Fund is proposed for investing in key points of intervention to 

 strengthen the institutions for science and technology (S&T) in Africa in 

 order to increase their productivity by: 



1. Assisting directly with the costs of particular research projects 

 chosen on a competitive basis, 



2. Providing training for African development specialists, laboratory 

 technicians, and other scientific personnel in particularly crucial 

 fields where the numbers are insufficient to the needs, 



3. Offering opportunities to African scientists whose education is not 

 directly appropriate for development-relevant projects to re-train for 

 limited periods of time, 



4. Investing grant funds to increase the flow of needed scientific and 

 technical documentation to African university and research institute 

 libraries, solving the current impasse created by the shortage of 

 foreign exchange, 



5. Increasing the voluntary contributions of scientific equipment, 

 journals, books, and other materials not available for African 

 scientists and technologists by American scholars, universities, and 

 others, and 



6. Expanding the scholarly cooperation, liaison, and linkages between 

 US scientists, universities, research institutes, and scientific 

 associations in fields of direct relevance to development in order to 

 increase the exchange of scientific knowledge, experience, skills, and 

 training. 



The Fund would require a sustained effort for at least 10 to 20 years, 

 with an evaluation at least every five years, in order to build on African 

 initiatives and to provide an enduring catalyst for African S*:T institu- 

 tions. In addition to increasing S&T research for development, the Fund 

 also would create immense good will for the USA among a strategic African 

 elite. By strengthening the African university as one of the key S&T re- 

 search institutions, the Fund also would improve the quality of leadership 

 in the various nations and of the primary source of analysis and self- 

 criticism in these sometimes one-party states. 



Several administrative arrangements for the operation of the Fund are 

 offered as alternatives for consideration. In each of the several alterna- 

 tives, it is assumed that the Fund will operate as a national resource 

 with members of a governance board drawn from S&T specialists in govern- 

 ment and in the community of scholars who are concerned with Africa. 



