NEPAD Agency ABNE, in collaboration with Makerere University, Uganda and Michigan State University, organized a biosafety short course for African regulators in Kampala, Uganda, from 14 to 17 July 2014. Twenty-two regulators from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe took part in this course. This was the second time ABNE organized such a high profile course in Africa after the one held at the Polytechnic University of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, in November 2013.

The short course was officially opened by Prof. John O. Asibo, Guest of honor and Chairperson of the National Biosafety Committee in Uganda, in the presence of Prof. Diran Makinde, ABNE Director, Prof. Bernard Bashaasha, Principal of Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Prof. Rebecca Grumet from Michigan State University.

In his statement, Prof. Asibo emphasized the importance for African countries to have reliable systems to monitor developments in biotechnology to ensure successes in health, food security, biodiversity and trade. “There should be confidence in unanimous decision-making expertise guided by technical sub-committees and systems for the provision of information to and education of the public. We should have the capacity to evaluate our own status of knowledge, policies, implementation and application for the wellbeing of our people and the rest of the world”, he added.

23 topics were addressed and discussed during this short course which was an opportunity to keep participants abreast of the fundamental knowledge and the recent developments of biotechnology and biosafety in Africa and at the global level. Presentations during the first day focused on agricultural biotechnology and biosafety while the second day emphasized environmental biosafety matters. The following day was dedicated to food and feed safety aspects and the last day focused on commercial release, socio-economics, biosafety communication, law and policy.  

From left to right are Prof Rebecca Grumet, Prof John O Asibo, Prof Diran Makinde and Prof Bernard Bashaasha

This short course was an opportunity for participants to share the lessons learnt in African countries with significant experience in agricultural biotechnology regulation such as Burkina Faso, Ghana, Uganda and Malawi. A field visit also allowed participants to see GM banana trials in the laboratory and confined field trials at  Kawanda Research Center near Kampala.

On the side of the short course, Prof. Diran Makinde, ABNE Director, paid a courtesy visit to the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST), host to the ABNE node in Uganda. Prof. Makinde was welcomed by Dr. Maxwell Otim Onapa, Deputy Executive Secretary of UNCST. They both agreed on the need to strengthen collaboration between the two institutions to ensure safe use of modern biotechnology in Uganda and in the East African sub-region.

Comments from participants

Dr. Jonathan Mufandaedza, Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the National Biosafety Authority of Zimbabwe.

“The Biosafety course is an important course for us, given that we are involved in biosafety and biotechnology issue back home. We have got quite a varied array of people who were coming to facilitate the course; it showed quite a lot of experience drawn from different African countries. However, we felt that adding one another voice would enrich the course much further.

As Zimbabwe, we really feel that NEPAD ABNE initiative is for Africans and for Zimbabwe as well. We wish to be involved in activities being supported by ABNE such as the training of trainers so that we constantly are in touch with our regulators and the players who are involved in the biosafety regulation in Zimbabwe”.

Mr. Thomas Bwana, Principal Agricultural Officer from the Department of Environment which is the National Biosafety Focal Point in Tanzania.  

“This biosafety short course is good. It is like exposing the regulators to what is happening elsewhere and we had this opportunity of sharing experience with some other people who have been doing their confined field trials in their countries and also these other who are starting. So the course was good.

We are sure that this technology is very good but also there are some worries. And when we are back home, we are addressing those worries before making decisions.   I wish we spend more time on this portion where people could go in details and tell us the worries and the counter arguments against those worries”.

Dr. Wezi Mkwaila, Lecturer at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, she also serves as the part time Programme Officer for ABNE in Malawi.

“This course is quite a unique short course in that it is organized by Africans targeting African regulators. I think it is a success. I like the cross section of the participants, I also like the presentations in that they were all talking about the African context especially like the field visit where we saw GM bananas; that is an African crop being researched on by African scientists to solve an African problem.

I have learnt during this course to bring all people onboard. In our case, in Malawi, we have a National Biosafety Regulation Committee that is composed of all stakeholders and the key is to listen to all their concerns and not dismiss them even if scientifically they may not be sound, but we need to answer to every issue case by case and also address every concern one by one”.