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Proposed Approach
The ATPS approach is built on knowledge generation, knowledge dissemination and knowledge brokering. ATPS represents a neutral, non-biased actor which has no prior stake in the biotechnology debate. ATPS' efforts will emphasize transparency, consensus building and inclusive participation of all key stakeholders. ATPS' mission has always been to provide accurate and informed policy advice and support on key science and technology issues to African policy makers. Thus, ATPS is perfectly poised to make a crucial contribution to the biotechnology debate in Africa.
Dialogue on Biotechnology, Trade and Sustainable Development in Eastern Africa, Jinja, Uganda, February 2006
The Eastern African Dialogue on Biotechnology Policy-making, Trade and Sustainable Development, held from 14-17 February 2006 in Jinja, Uganda, brought together a wide range of stakeholders "including government and intergovernmental organizations, civil society groups, academia, industry and the media" from the Eastern African region to deliberate on the formulation of coherent, informed and inclusive policies on trade, biotechnology and sustainable development at the national, regional and multilateral levels.
Countries in the Eastern African region are still in the process of formulating their national policies and strategies related to biotechnology and translating them into national and regional approaches and multilateral negotiating positions. The need to respond and adapt to the international developments "including a myriad of trade interests, obligations and pressures" threatens to dominate national agendas. This raises the urgent need for understanding and asserting the space for domestic policy-making in biotechnology supportive of the countries' self-defined sustainable development objectives.
The recommendations of the meeting are discussed below:
Formulating Public Policy Objectives related to Biotechnology
Recommendations addressed to governments
African governments should be more proactive in analyzing and identifying their short, medium and long term needs, policy gaps and priorities. These priorities should ideally be developed with the participation of relevant actors in the public and the private sectors. Countries' policies and strategies for biotechnology development should be based on clearly identified public policy objectives that are specific and formulated through participatory processes. These could include:
- Ensuring food security, including access to safe and sufficient food
- Increase agricultural productivity, rural development and poverty alleviation
- Promote economic growth through diversification in to high-value products and technological development
- Promoting public health and food safety
- Conserve, sustainably use and equitably share the benefits of biodiversity
Making Sure Biotechnology Enhances Public Policy Objectives
Recommendations addressed to governments
Achieving these objectives will entail addressing and integrating a range of policy areas and instruments in order to develop a coherent biotechnology policy framework.
Some areas and instruments to be addressed include:
- Science and technology development and mechanisms to identify and acquire strategic technologies
- Capacity building: establish technology targets to promote national capabilities, focusing on key industries (incl. infrastructure, institutional, human resources);
- Biosafety and quality standards
- Consumer protection and safety
- Agriculture, Environment and natural resources
- Trade, value addition and economic growth
- Private sector input on policy formulation
- Intellectual property rights: improve capabilities to mitigate the potential negative effects of stronger ownership rights on intellectual property
- Education/multidisciplinary human capital
- Information and communication
- Finance and resource mobilization
Recommendations addressed to national and regional actors
Action on these policy instruments will be required at both the national and regional levels. At the national level, countries could focus on:
- Mechanisms for labeling to facilitate consumer choice (incl. enforcement)
- An enabling policy environment for biotech development
- Inter-institutional/ministerial collaboration
- Raising public awareness
- Regulatory, human resources, institutional and infrastructure development
- Fostering partnerships (public-private, private-private)
- Providing sufficient funding for research and access to the technology
At the regional level, partnerships, such as NEPAD, and regional economic agreements should be considered as a means to achieving developmental goals. Commercial considerations should be balanced by social, environmental and cultural objectives. National governments and regional institutions should:
- Harmonize national policies and strategies for a regional agenda (incl. to facilitate trade)
- Develop joint negotiating positions by providing a common forum to formulate strategy, articulate and prioritize issues
- Set up a process of consultations to promote coherent interaction between the national regional actors to develop and promote:
- Joint research and development activities
- Joint standard-setting
- Joint risk assessments o Joint monitoring of impacts and benefits
- A regional biosafety clearing house
Ensuring Public Participation and Awareness
Successful implementation of domestic, regional and international policies and regulations can only be achieved through integration, coordination and cooperation among all stakeholders. This will involve raising awareness of the risks and benefits of biotechnology and promoting official national multi-stakeholder consultation processes that include networks of farmers associations and civil society groups. All parties concerned with science and technology "industrial leaders and researchers, academia, financial institutions and the government" should also be engaged to determine, over a period, the technological course and needs for their country.
Recommendations addressed to governments
- There is a need to strengthen dialogue among all national actors in the preparation of national public policy objectives and biotechnology policies
- Governments should involve local grassroots groups in reaching out to farming communities by creating broad awareness-raising programmes using mass media that target rural areas
- To ensure informed participation by the public, governments should articulate in understandable language the uses, benefits and underlying impacts of biotechnology and improve information dissemination to all stakeholders.
Policy Coherence in Biotechnology
To support technology upgrading in Eastern African countries, governments must put in place institutional mechanisms for comprehensively evaluating and setting science and technology priorities and making sure responsibility for relevant policies is coordinated between ministries and institutions.
Building coherence with trade policy
National and regional biotechnology policies will need to be integrated with trade obligations (eg WTO rules) and trade interests. Some concerns and issues include:
- WTO rules do not necessarily reflect national trade interest due to limited capacities in developing counties to formulate and promote national negotiating positions
- WTO rules place the onus of justifying biosafety measures on the importer (in the absence of international standard); developing countries often lack capacity to do that
- Dumping of GM food aid can displace local producers
- Biotech standards in export markets can constitute trade barriers and hinder market access
- Inadequate intellectual property systems can foster the misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, and hinder the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use
Recommendations addressed to governments
- Enshrine policy coherence between the different areas of policy to take into account biotechnology development and applications
- Entrust one body with analyzing technology needs monitoring implementation at the broad economic level of S&T strategies
- Harmonize governments' financial support and align it with nationally or regionally defined public policy goals
- Devise a mechanism to promote coherent interaction between the national, regional and multilateral policies and trade regimes
Financial Resources and Funding for Biotechnology
Recommendations addressed to governments and financial institutions
One of the main constraints affecting the implementation of effective biotech regulations and the development of biotechnology has been inadequate funding. Governments should review and adapt laws and commercial regulations to enhance funding for biotechnology policy-making and development by:
- A commitment to dedicate a fixed percentage of government budgets to biotechnology. This could be a Biotechnology Fund to co-finance research and development by industry
- Offering special credit lines for biotechnology and providing both financial and non-financial services by entering into partnerships that enhance commercialization including through venture capital initiatives
- Providing incentives and encouraging banks to report on the composition of their loan portfolios dedicated to biotechnology
Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
Capacity building policies and programmes should be reviewed so as to make them work in support of public policy objectives through biotechnology development as an integral part of national and regional biotechnology policies. There is a need for an agreement on a common underlying vision for capacity building to provide sustainable capacity support for specific needs of the productive sector at various levels. Assessing local technological competence (SWOT analysis) to overcome weaknesses would serve a valuable function in raising awareness and building consensus.
Recommendations addressed to governments, regional actors and international institutions
Build capacity to ensure adequate human and institutional capacities for biotechnology development and mainstream biotechnology policy by:
- Strengthening linkages and understanding between the scientific and policy-making communities
- Enhancing capacities needed to articulate and assess policy choices and options related to biotechnology
- Developing and putting in place a system to address issues related to liability and redress
- Taking an integrated approach to biotech-related capacity building by engaging a broad range of actors, including scientists, policy-makers, economists, regulators, agricultural producers, industry and the media
- Providing adequate laboratory capacity and high quality personnel with necessary skills needed to effectively exploit the opportunities offered by the biotechnology, including by building regional and sub-regional testing and certification facilities
- Fostering close interaction between education and industry for assessing and communicating evolving needs is a basic feature of human capital development
- Focusing capacity building strategies towards long-term education programmes through universities and strategically selected on-the-job training to build a critical mass of technological expertise
- Develop a critical mass of experts at all levels through organized long-term theoretical and practical training both formal and informal
- Ensuring that Research & Development meets international standards and quality;
- Providing analytical input into policy-making, inter alia on the risks and benefits of biotechnology, esp. in Africa; environmental impacts in different ecosystems; impacts on trade; market opportunities; and market entry and market access barriers
- Developing capacity on intellectual property rights issues and its institutionalization
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