New forum to facilitate better understanding of science and technology to enhance agricultural advancement through interaction of scientists with the media, law makers and policy makers will be launched in Nairobi on 14 September 2006.

A monthly forum to facilitate the flow of information between the scientific community, policy makers and the general public will be launched in Nairobi on 14 September 2006 by the Nairobi-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

The Forum to be known as the Nairobi Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology will bring together stakeholders in agriculture and enable interactions between scientists, journalists, the civil society, industrialists, lawmakers and policy makers. The Forum will provide an opportunity for key stakeholders to know one another, share knowledge and experiences, make new contacts and explore new avenues of bringing the benefits of biotechnology to the African agricultural sector.

Three lead speakers will preside over the launch. Professor Ruth Oniang’o, a renowned Kenyan nutritionist, food scientist, academic and legislator, will speak on the role of scientists in community development, while Mr Wellington Chadehumbe, a Johannesburg-based venture capital economist and Chief Executive Officer of Triumph Venture Capital (Pty) Ltd South Africa, a company that funds technology-based start-up companies to promote sustainable and innovation-driven economic growth in South Africa will speak on "Truth, Freedom and Growth." The highlight of the launch will be a talk by Mr Mark F Cantley, a former European Commission adviser on Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food (Directorate of Life Sciences) who will speak on “Public policy for biotechnology: International lessons from European experience.”

Making the announcement, the Executive Director of AATF, Dr Mpoko Bokanga, said that Nairobi hosts several centers of excellence in biotechnology research and development and a large number of scientists and experts who can provide answers to many of the questions of interest to the general public regarding this technology. The Open Forum will therefore bring these scientists and experts together on a monthly basis so that they can be easily reached by the media, lawmakers and policy makers.

The initiative, he said, is in response to the need for better understanding of a range of products, benefits and concerns associated with biotechnology and for providing an opportunity to African agricultural scientists and experts to bring the benefit of their knowledge to bear on finding of solutions to Africa’s development problems.

In most fields of human endeavour, including in agriculture, progress comes from innovations – from the application of knowledge of how to do things better. Agriculture is a site-specific undertaking. Africa’s agricultural research institutions are located on the very farms that need innovations and new technologies. The African Union (AU), the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the regional economic communities (COMESA, ECOWAS, SADC, etc.) are all calling for the adoption of new technologies to address the set objective of increasing agricultural productivity. African scientists and experts are well placed to understand the constraints of African agriculture and the technological solutions that it requires; it is imperative that their voices are clearly heard in the search for these solutions.

The Nairobi Forum is the first of many to be set-up in major urban centers of Sub-Saharan Africa hosting a critical mass of agricultural and biological scientists. The meetings of the Nairobi Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology will be held every month at the Jacaranda Hotel.

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is an African-led charity designed to facilitate and promote public/private partnerships for the identification, transfer, delivery and uptake of royalty-free proprietary technologies that will meet the needs of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The AATF facilitates networks that link food security, poverty reduction, market development and economic growth with the aim of delivering concrete value to African smallholder farmers and promoting the development of sustainable markets. To achieve this goal, the AATF works closely with African stakeholders – farmers, small businesses, research institutes, government extension services and NGOs in Sub-Saharan Africa, among others – to identify the needs of resourcepoor smallholder farmers and match them with technologies suitable for adaptation to African ecologies and farming systems. The AATF is incorporated in Kenya and in the UK. It is a registered charity in England and Wales.