Governance

The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) has given $8.1 million to Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) to support the continuation of the Kuwait Program at HKS Belfer Center's Middle East Initiative. The gift will be used to develop leaders with the capacity to address the many challenging public policy issues facing the region. It will also fund research issues of vital importance in the region, such as education, energy, and water.

"...[W]e should resist the temptation to react to the fear of terrorism by turning inwards, reducing ties to foreign countries, and denying more students entry. Reducing the number of foreign student Visas would be counterproductive. The US tried it after September 11th, but has now reversed its approach, realising the harm it is doing. To do the same would be to be cowed into becoming a more closed society. We must remain open, outward-looking and vibrant. It is precisely many of these foreign students who will help their countries to reduce terrorism over the long run."

"African universities could be the continent's gateways into the global knowledge economy for local diffusion of new technologies. But this potential remains unrealized because universities and research institutes in Africa remain digitally isolated from the rest of the world. This is partly because of government neglect and lack of strategic policies on Internet access....Providing low-cost, high-speed Internet access to African universities will help Africa build the capacity it needs to solve its own problems. It is one of the most strategic investments that the G-8 countries can make in Africa in the coming few years."

"Kenyans will elect a new president in December. But unlike in previous elections, the president will preside over a country dominated by the youth who have a new outlook on life....Performance standards will soon take centre stage and will start to directly challenge patronage as a management style....The "text generation" will be more interested in a functioning economy and less in ethnic politics that has dominated Kenya and most of post-colonial Africa."

"The market release of the iconic $100 laptop (XO) later this year promises to do for education what the cell phone did for telecommunications....Like the cellphone, new educational technologies such as the XO will demand greater flexibility in educational systems....Existing curricula are like landlines; fixed in place and dependent for their functioning on centralized bureaucracies."

"Meeting safety requirements in international markets will involve the use of sophisticated information systems that allow regulators to effectively trace the movement of products through the entire food chain.

Having technical capacity to manage safety information will help African countries to add value to their produce."

African countries are increasing the allocation of funds to scientific research. But such investments will be wasted if they are used for basic research rather than product innovation.

Testimony of Calestous Juma before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Hearing on Food Security in Africa: The Impact of Agricultural Development

"I wish to share my vision of a possible future where the digital divide — a term that implies inequality of access to Internet connectivity, to relevant information, education, knowledge, and opportunity in digital formats and in digital networks — is eliminated in the United States by adapting a national ubiquitous high-speed broadband policy."