Biotechnology in Africa: Emergence, Initiatives and Future by Florence Wambugu and Daniel Kamanga
Release Date: April 30, 2014
Publisher: Springer
In this book, Florence Wambugu and Daniel Kamanga of Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International bring together expert African authorities to critique various biotechnology initiatives and project future developments in the field in Africa. For the first time, African voices from multidisciplinary fields as diverse as economics, agriculture, biotechnology, law, politics and academia, demand to be allowed to set the continent’s biotech development agenda. This book argues that there is a great future for biotechnology in Africa which sidesteps western interests that do not match those of the local populace. In these diverse chapters, Africa’s political and scientific leaders demand a greater say in how research and development funds are allocated and spent. They argue that Africa’s political leaders must see both clear benefits and have elbow-room to drive the change required. This is the way that African governments can employ workable policies, suitable biosafety legislation and regulation and respond effectively to public-private partnerships. Wambugu and Kamanga show that biotechnology has the potential to improve food security and standard of living as well as mitigate the detrimental effects of climate change on the African continent.
Florence Wambugu is the CEO of Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI). She has also written
Modifying Africa: How biotechnology can benefit the poor and hungry, a case study from Kenya and
The benefits of biotechnology for small-scale banana producers in Kenya (both 2001).
Daniel Kamanga is director of the communications program at AHBFI.
