14 Items

Nov. 23, 2016, a train returns from transporting ballast used in the construction of the Nairobi-Mombasa railway

AP Photo/Ben Curtis

Discussion Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

African Regional Economic Integration

| Winter 2018

The power of Pan-Africanism as a guiding vision for the continent’s development is widely studied, mostly as an aspirational phenomenon. At worst, Pan-Africanism has often been seen as a poor imitation of American federalism or European integration. Both of these perceptions do not reflect the profound nature of the role that the ideology of Pan-Africanism played in shaping the continent’s economic transformation. 

Wheat Plantation in northern Sudan, 26 November 2014.

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Breakthrough

Revolution in Africa

| December 16, 2016

"Sustaining African agricultural transformation will require national policy approaches which emphasize the need to transition toward sustainable agriculture. More specifically, they will need to pursue strategies that allow for the integration of precision agriculture in existing farming methods. Such policies could focus on six key elements: biological diversity; ecology and emerging technologies; infrastructure; research and training; entrepreneurship and regional trade; and improved governance of agricultural innovation."

Announcement - Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Belfer Center

STPP Fellowships, 2014–2015

November 25, 2013

Each year, the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School welcomes new pre- and post-doctoral fellows and visiting researchers to a select team of scholars exploring the critical role that science and technology play in everyday life.

Harvard Development Expert: Agricultural Innovation Offers Path to Overcome Hunger

Photo by Martha Stewart

Press Release - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Harvard Development Expert: Agricultural Innovation Offers Path to Overcome Hunger

| June 3, 2013

The world can only meet its future food needs through innovation, including the use of agricultural biotechnology, Belfer Center development specialist Calestous Juma said in an address to graduates of McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Since their commercial debut in the mid-1990s, genetically designed crops have added about $100 billion to world crop output, avoided massive pesticide use and greenhouse gas emissions, spared vast tracts of land and fed millions of additional people worldwide, Juma said during the graduation ceremony where he received an honorary doctorate. He asked the graduates to embrace innovative sciences that alone will make it possible to feed the billions who will swell world population in decades ahead, especially in developing countries.

May 31, 2011: Issiaka Ouedraogo lays cocoa beans out to dry on reed mats, on a farm outside the village of Fangolo, Ivory Coast. Climate change will leave many cocoa-producing areas in West Africa unsuitable for chocolate production by 2050.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Science

Science Meets Farming in Africa

| December 9, 2011

"Africa has a long history of exporting resources and importing food, despite the potential to meet its own food demands, reduce poverty, and drive economic growth. Unfortunately, major international agencies such as the United Nations (UN) have persistently opposed expanding biotechnology to regions most in need of its societal and economic benefits."

A Chery Riich M1 is seen at an auto show in Shanghai, China, 26 Apr. 2009. Leading private Chinese automaker Chery will set up a joint venture with the China-Africa Development Fund to further explore the car market in Africa.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - CNN

Asian Interest Means Africa Needs New Economic Vision

| August 31, 2011

"The surge in interest in Africa by China and India requires a different approach that does not view the continent as a helpless victim of foreign influence. To that end African countries are seeking to replace classical foreign policy that focuses on access to markets in return for raw materials with a new vision of economic diplomacy."

Mar. 28, 2008 file photo: trucks laden with goods headed for Zimbabwe near a border post in Musina, South Africa. South & east African states are moving toward a free trade agreement that is as much about development as open borders & dropped tariffs.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The East African

Building Africa Bloc by Bloc

| June 20, 2011

"The map of Africa as a hopeless collection of failing post-colonial economies is being redrawn before our very eyes. Credit should go to African leaders for their stubborn refusal to accept the future as predicted by others but to seek to change it. As they say, for Africa, the future is not what it used to be."

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011

| Spring 2011

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

Women who are riding a donkey take on some water in Lake Chad, Nov. 25, 2006. The lake that once provided adequate livelihoods for 20 million people in west-central Africa, has lost 90 percent of its surface area in 30 years.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The Daily Nation

Climate Change a Stumbling Block to Africa's Economies

| September 15, 2009

According to the World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change, ... a two-degree Celsius warming above pre-industrial levels could permanently reduce Africa's annual per capita consumption by four to five per cent....The report calls on industrialised countries, which have released most of the greenhouse gases, to lead the way in charting a new low-carbon economic path. In addition, the report calls for financial support to enable developing countries adapt to climate change and lay the foundation for low-carbon economies.