Lack of research bane of development
The Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr Baba Salifu, has attributed the poor performance of the various sectors of the country’s economy such as agriculture, health and education to the lack of effective research.
He, therefore, called for the necessary incentives to be offered to indigenous researchers to make them strive further to move the frontiers of the scientific knowledge through research.
“Ghana’s ambition to become an upper- middle income country required a vision of development which would integrate science, technology and innovation, as well as other research development outputs into national development,” he stated.
Dr Salifu made the statement at the International Research Initiatives Conference (IRIC)-2014, held in Accra.
The event, which was the first to be held in the country, was attended by about 200 participants from abroad and local public and private universities.
Dr Baba Salifu, who was the guest speaker for the occasion, said the premium placed on science, technology and innovation (STI) as the main drivers of development had not been high as the proportion of the nation’s budget allocated to it had been low.
He said it had fluctuated between 0.3 per cent and 0.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which, according to him, was below the target of 1 per cent of the country’s GDP prescribed at the Summit of African Heads of States of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
The programme, which was an annual multi-disciplinary international research-focused conference for researchers and practitioners in developing and developed countries, was hosted by the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT) in collaboration with local and international partners.
According to Dr Essel Ben Hagan, the IRIC -2014 Coordinator, the programme was designed to serve as an international forum for presentation and discussion of outputs of national research efforts, as well as to serve as an avenue for sharing experiences.
Over 90 academic and research papers were presented and discussed at the IRIC- 2014. The issues discussed were on the fields of STI, Advances in Computer Sciences, Educational Technology and Innovation, Food and Agriculture Technologies and Innovation; Engineering and Infrastructure, Health, Energy and the Environment, and Management and Entrepreneurship.
The programme was co-sponsored by the CSIR, Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS), Ghana Institute of Engineers (GhIE), International Institute for Information Technology (INIIT), University Publishing Inc. and others.
