Asia & the Pacific

"Biotechnology offers Africa a wider range of economic opportunities than the Green Revolution did. It is already being used to improve food production and establish or revive cotton production. Its economic impact is therefore likely to go well beyond the farm sector to include industrial development."

"The tools available to India in the 1960s are not sufficient to address the challenges that African agriculture now faces. These include a rapidly-growing population, productivity loss due to ecological disruption, environmental decay, droughts, climate change, and conflict. Biotechnology offers additional tools that can help Africa address some of these challenges. It is another moment that calls for the kind of political courage that led to the adoption of the Green Revolution."

"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."

"China’s ability to respond rapidly to requests for investment in new areas such as infrastructure has emboldened many African leaders who are under pressure to meet their electoral promises....Many of the transactions between China and Africa are kept confidential and little is known about their terms. Promoting greater transparency and mutual learning from those arrangements will help to improve the image of Chinese businesses in Africa."

"China needs to complement its raw material imports with serious efforts that help African countries become exporters of finished goods to the Chinese market....There is a strategic starting point for China. The country has set up the US$5 billion China-Africa Development Fund that aims to eliminate tariffs on over 440 African export items and build several economic and trade cooperation zones across the continent."

"In response to long periods of neglect, African countries are starting to invest in new energy production facilities...."

SOME IN the West have recently begun referring to the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the "Genocide Olympics" because of China's continued business ties with Sudan and its reluctance to intervene decisively in the Darfur conflict....

"There are other long-term measures to support technical higher education, which include providing tax incentives to private individuals and firms that create and run technical institutes on the basis of agreed government policy.

Governments too need to formulate policies that allow experienced government, industry and civil society staff and other professionals to serve as faculty and instructors in these institutions. This can be implemented as part of a national service system or as an effort to expose students to practitioners."