By Eunice Orike
Supervisor at the centre of excellence in STI, to African Union Development Agency, AUDA-NEPAD, prof. Olalekan Akinbo, has urged African nations to come together with a common agenda to drive sustainable development on the continent.
Akinbo made the urge in an interview with journalists yesterday.
He assured that with a common agenda, it would be easy for African nations to fast track sustainable development.
The AU official said leadership holds responsibility and that it was time for some African governments to move into action for the betterment of the livelihood of citizens.
He urged that some African leaders sitting on development opportunities should take advantage of appropriate technologies, such as genome editing to mitigate massive food production challenges.
He noted that the technology of genome editing was facilitated by the African Union Centre of Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation STI.
“Until our leaders in some of these countries look within the spirit of the law and the window that allow for progress, we will be singing the same story.
“You can go all over the world witnessing tremendous changes but nothing change in your own country.
“Your country would keep revising and revising and nothing is happening,” he said.
He added that when such a situation occurred, developmental strides would be stalled.
According to him, some African countries should take a cue from Ethiopia who said they wanted the technology and their government lived up to expectations by conforming their words to reality.
He said the Ethiopian government showed integrity in respect to the technology when their team was asked to revise the proclamation and bring it back within a time frame for action.
The expert said that it was important for African nations to come together under the platform of the AUDA-NEPAD initiative, with a common agenda to drive development on the continent.
He re-iterated that the African Union was working on Agenda 2063 and the focal point was zero hunger.
