Victoria falls: Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, the Founding Director for the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana, has called for global reparations to rebuild Africa’s scientific capacity. He highlighted this need during a keynote address at the Fourth Conference of the African Plant Breeders Association (APBA), being held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. The conference is focused on addressing food insecurity, malnutrition, and climate change through genetic innovation.
According to Ghana News Agency, Professor Danquah’s call for reparations is rooted in the historical neglect of higher education in Africa during the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s and 1990s. These programs, advised by the Bretton Woods institutions, prompted many African governments to prioritize basic education over tertiary education. This policy shift, he argued, severely impacted the continent’s scientific capacity, leading to a significant brain drain that crippled universities for decades.
Professor Danquah, who also serves as the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Ghana National Research Fund, emphasized that the future of Africa’s food security relies on rebuilding human and institutional capacities to drive agricultural transformation. The recent State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report indicated that 307 million Africans face hunger, despite the continent possessing 65 percent of the world’s remaining arable land. He asserted that strategic investments in higher education and science are essential to resolving this paradox.
He urged the global community to support Africa’s scientific renaissance with reparative investments, such as debt cancellation for higher-education loans, endowments for African universities, and the establishment of an African Talent Fund for Plant Breeding. Professor Danquah’s leadership as the Inaugural President of the APBA from 2019 to 2023 was recognized during the conference with a Meritorious Service Award for his contributions to the association’s development and mission.
Drawing from the success of WACCI in training over 120 PhD plant breeders across 20 African countries and Ghana’s efforts in establishing the Ghana National Research Fund (GNRF), he stressed that African-led institutions have the potential to transform agriculture with consistent support. “Scientific excellence is the currency of influence in the global development arena, without which Africa could remain a consumer of knowledge rather than a producer,” he stated.
Professor Danquah concluded by urging African governments and international partners to take bold actions to rebuild Africa’s knowledge systems and secure a food-secure future for the continent.