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World Post Day | BOTEC hosts 7th RRA meeting

In his presentation, Dr Reinie Biesenbach, the Chief Executive Officer of the RRA Secretariat highlighted some key issues which included:

* Africa’s share of global population will increase to 22% by 2050, but then the growth in GDP per capita will be minimal and the low level of expenditure on Research and Development would reduce.

* The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the African Laser Centre, the Square Kilometre Array and Centre for High Performance Computing can be seen as a phenomenal African success stories. These accomplishments should be seen to benefit S&T for the rest of the African continent.

Dr Biesenbach informed the meeting that in order for the RRA to be fully representative of the SADC Region it is important to consider extending its membership to other countries within the region. He further informed the meeting that good progress has been made regarding the implementation of the RRA Strategic plan, but noted that there were two areas that had not received attention which are the customer map and the three (3) year financial planning.

Mr Jackson Aliwa of BOTEC updated the meeting on the Mercury Project under the “Water and Food Security” theme which is being conducted in Botswana. This project focuses on the impact of mercury arising from gold mining activities around the Francistown area and its effect on water resources, the environment and human health. The project will start its field sampling towards the end of January 2009 at sites around Francistown and the catchment areas situated in Zimbabwe and that drain to the Tati and Shashe rivers. It is hoped that the results of the study will form baseline data for the gold mining activities in the region. Other presentations that were made covered the Energy Theme, and the Building, Construction and Infrastructure theme. Some World Bank Project proposals on diverse topics were also presented.

The meeting ended on a high note looking at the achievements made in the past financial year. Closing the meeting Dr Selaolo thanked the Principals for a successful meeting and said he was looking forward to relevant and high impact research by pooling the resources from members of the Alliance. He added that the RRA is relevant to research initiatives within the region and must demonstrate visible progress in the foreseeable future. Continue to read...

World Post Day | BOTEC hosts 7th RRA meeting