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Africa faces challenges of climate change with its adverse consequences on food and agriculture, water availability and disease and environmental disasters.
UNESCO seeks to assist governments in the creation and enhancement of enabling policy environments for Science, technology and innovation (STI) for sustainable development. Together with its partners, UNESCO will assist Member States in Africa in the creation and enhancement of enabling policy environments and in particular:
- strengthen the science, policy and society interface to advance equity and social inclusion;
- strengthen human and institutional capacity for education and training, research and innovation in science and engineering;
- promote South-South, North-South and triangular partnerships to enhance joint education and training, research and innovation, exchange of experts, internationally peer-reviewed systems;
- support career mentoring and development of innovation-hubs and networks with particular emphasis on empowering women in science and engineering and enabling the creation of an entrepreneurial culture.
UNESCO is leading the Global Alliance of STI in Africa based on its mandate and experience in science education, TVET and higher education, as well as in STI policies and capacity building. UNESCO is in a unique position for helping countries adopt a systemic and integrated approach to STI.
UNESCO has provided foresight planning to STI governance and policy and has assisted African member states in the review or formulation of their National STI Policy using UNESCO’s GOàSPIN platform, which is an STI mapping and analysis instrument. The time is now to harness the STI potential for sustainable development of African countries and to put a monitoring and evaluation system to assess the impact.