Regional agreements can also lead to cost-effective forms of protection for local communities. For example, the 1996 Andean Pact—adopted by Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela—empowers the national authority and indigenous communities in each country, who are defined as the holders of traditional knowledge and resources, to grant prior informed consent to the application of their knowledge in exchange for equitable returns.

3.3.1.2      Biotechnology
South Africa is the only country in Africa where genetically modified (GM) crops have been approved for commercial production. It has been producing insect-resistant cotton (Bt cotton) since the 1997-1998 production season. Insectresistant yellow maize (Bt maize) was planted in the 1998- 1999 season, and in 2001, South Africa became the first country in the world to plant a transgenic staple food (Bt white maize). Approval and adoption of herbicide tolerant and “stacked gene” varieties have followed.

In South Africa, small and large scale farmers use Bt cotton in seasons when bollworm pressure is significant (Gouse et al., 2003; Thirtle et al., 2003; Shankar and Thirtle, 2005; Hofs et al., 2006). Small-scale cotton production has collapsed in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Competition between two cotton-ginning companies has resulted in severe defaulting on production loans and consequently no credit for small-scale producers for the 2002-2003 cotton season (Gouse et al., 2005). This story of organizational failure emphasizes the need for measures to be in place for farmers to be able to benefit from technological advances. It also stresses that in many cases instituting scientific advances is easier than establishing the social, institutional and economic conditions for progress to occur.

Crops like Bt cotton can be beneficial where farmers have limited access and means to acquire insecticides and where cotton gins can supply credit using the anticipated harvest as collateral. Gins in collaboration with seed companies can also control the flow of seeds. However, on a continent where the use of hybrid maize seed is more the exception than the rule, widespread adoption of insect-resistant or herbicide-tolerant maize is doubtful. In SSA, where factors like HIV/AIDS and urbanization are putting pressure on the aging rural workforce, a labor-saving technology like herbicide-tolerant maize may help (Gouse et al., 2006). Whether farmers will be able to afford this technology and the herbicide is questionable and financial institutions are historically resistant to funding inputs for dryland subsistence farming.

South Africa has a vibrant seed industry that includes GM products, a functional biosafety regulatory framework, and over 500 transgenic field trials conducted to date. Kenya has a thriving horticultural industry based on vegetables, fruits and ornamentals (Minot and Ngigi, 2004). In recent years Kenya has initiated field trials in Bt maize, Bt cotton, sweet potato and virus-resistant cassava. While the sweet potato trials might not have yielded the expected results due to a mismatch in the viral coat protein gene used in the transgenic plants and the prevailing local virus strains, it was a landmark case insofar as getting the country to begin assembling the requisite structures for a functional biosafety framework. Kenya has created an enabling environment

that has attracted other resources. It now has a biosafety level 2 greenhouse and a genetic transformation laboratory at Kenyatta University. Also in Kenya are Biosciences East and Central Africa, and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation for brokering royalty-free proprietary technology for SSA. Kenya is host to a significant number of international research institutions, donors and development partners. The seed industry is receiving substantial support with the development of new seed delivery programs such as the Program for African Seed Systems (PASS) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA).

Uganda established a biotechnology laboratory in Kampala in 2003 for tissue culture of such crops as the East African highland banana and coffee. In 2007 Uganda began trials for a transgenic dessert banana developed in Belgium and purported to resist bacterial wilt and black Sigatoka fungal disease (Dauwers, 2007) and approved Bt cotton field trials (UNCST, 2007). The Program for Biosafety Systems is establishing country offices in both Kenya and Uganda to handle biosafety requirements in response to these developments.

A big issue facing SSA is the lack of qualified personnel to use the many available biotechnologies in tissue culture, molecular markers, diagnostics, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. Another issue is the lack of strong intellectual property rights. South Africa is the exception, filing annually for more patents than all those filed by the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO). South Africa would like to attract not only ARIPO’s Anglophone member countries, but also Francophone countries to form a broader legal platform (Crouch et al., 2003).

Conflict and instability inhibit advances in sub-Saharan Africa’s AKST system generally and its biotechnology capacity in particular. Zimbabwe provides one example. Once acknowledged for its superior capacity in biotechnology, the economic climate hinders the country’s active participation in key regional initiatives that are currently attracting donors and the country suffers from substantial loss of human resources.

3.3.2     Infrastructure
Infrastructure plays a critical role in science, technology and innovation efforts in developing countries and is one of the most important factors in attracting foreign direct investment. Paradoxically, the poor state of Africa’s infrastructure is partly because of a lack of investment.

Rapid technological change and increasing investment in transportation, communications and information technology have facilitated and partly driven the geographical diffusion of production processes across countries. Technological change has led to growing integration of world capital markets, increasing the international flows of short- and long-term private capital. However, these flows have largely left the poorest countries untouched because of their low level of technological development (IFPRI, 2001).

3.3.2.1      Transportation
Transportation infrastructure (roads, railways, harbors, airports) has a profound effect on the ability of agricultural producers to exploit economies of scale and to promote ef-