International charity opens African office to boost R&D

SciDev.Net 09 January 2016

An international charity and non-governmental organisation that works to promote Africa’s scientific independence has launched a local office in Mauritius to help boost research and development on the continent, reports SciDev.Net.

The opening of a local office of the UK-headquartered Planet Earth Institute on 23 November last year is to strengthen the charity’s aim of making scientific research an attractive career option in Africa for trained scientists who can stay on the continent and get their own subsidies to solve local problems, the Planet Earth Institute says.

In June last year, business leaders, President Macky Sall of Senegal and representatives of heads of state of Ethiopia and Rwanda helped launch a fund to support the World Bank’s Partnership for Skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology, or PASET, programme, which aims to train 10,000 PhD students in Africa over the next 10 years. According to the Planet Earth Institute, which is supporting the fundraising for PASET, the initiative will be funded by African governments and a group of companies investing in science, technology and innovation in Mauritius and across Africa.
Full report on the SciDev.Net site

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