Africa

163 Items

Photo of Calestous Juma in his office.

Martha Stewart

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

Remembering Our Colleague Professor Calestous Juma

Our colleague Calestous Juma—who passed away on December 15 at age 64 after a long illness—was a pioneering, prolific, and influential scholar/practitioner in science and technology policy for sustainable well-being. He joined Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) in 1999 as Director of the Science, Technology, and Innovation Project (a joint venture of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Center for International Development) and became Professor of the Practice of International Development in 2002, a position in which he maintained his exceptional productivity and engagement with policy, despite illness, up to the time of his death.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Security Science, July 2015

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Discussion Paper - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

When Did (and Didn’t) States Proliferate?

| June 2017

In this Project on Managing the Atom Discussion Paper, Philipp C. Bleek chronicles nuclear weapons proliferation choices throughout the nuclear age. Since the late 1930s and early 1940s, some thirty-one countries are known to have at least explored the possibility of establishing a nuclear weapons program. Seventeen of those countries launched weapons programs, and ten acquired deliverable nuclear weapons.

Soroti, Uganda: Made up of 32,680 photovoltaic panels, the new 10-megawatt facility is the country’s first grid-connected solar plant and will generate clean, low-carbon, sustainable electricity to 40,000 homes, schools and businesses in the area.

Access Power MEA

Analysis & Opinions - The Conversation

Important Wins Were Notched Up for African Agriculture in 2016

| December 18, 2016

"2016 was a big year for agriculture in Africa with some notable 'wins' across the continent. One of the most important gains was the increased use of emerging technologies beyond the traditional use of mobile phones in agriculture. The range includes precision agriculture, sensors, satellites and drones."

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."

Analysis & Opinions - Quartz Africa

If We Develop Africa's Bioeconomy It Will Be as Transformative for Us as Digital Has Been

| Dec. 13, 2016

"Unlike the digital revolution that relied on pre-existing technologies, the new bioeconomy will involve more local research, teaching and commercialization. This will require greater involvement of local universities, especially those with an entrepreneurial inclination."

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Magazine Article - The Conversation

Lessons from 'The New Harvest' on How Academics Can Turn Their Work into Policy

| December 8, 2016

"The goal of the book was to invest in thinking. It doesn't have a list of recommendations but generates options for action that are backed by evidence. We chose to forgo credit by adopting this approach, but it’s been very encouraging to see some key impacts that acknowledge the book."

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Analysis & Opinions - The Conversation

If Africa Learnt to Feed its Chickens it Could Feed its People

| September 20, 2016

"South Africa is the continent's largest chicken producer. According to the South African Poultry Association, chicken imports from Brazil, the European Union and the US are destroying the domestic sector....This has led to oversupply and price reduction. This may benefit consumers, but it undercuts incentives for local production."

Lessons learned from dismantlement of South Africa's biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs

Wikimedia

Journal Article - Nonproliferation Review

Lessons learned from dismantlement of South Africa's biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs

| September 8, 2016

South Africa had active nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs during the 1970s and 1980s. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapon program prior to its 1991 accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Similarly, it terminated its chemical weapons program prior to its 1995 ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Only the dismantlement of Pretoria's nuclear weapons program was subjected to international verification—albeit ex post facto—following a 1993 decision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference to verify the correctness and completeness of South Africa's declarations under its NPT safeguards agreement. During the 1980s, South Africa also developed and purportedly used biological weapons, violating its obligations under the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, which it had ratified in 1975. This article draws lessons from the verification of the dismantlement of these programs and makes recommendations for future verification work to confirm the elimination of weapons of mass destruction capabilities.