COVID-19: Collaborate or perish – A roadmap for research

African universities should collaborate within national and regional research networks to develop new ideas, innovative solutions and build local capacity to deal with the ongoing challenges and consequences of COVID-19 – and, in the long run, they need more government support and funding for research.

The African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) are such collaboration platforms which have more muscle to lobby for research investment than individual higher education institutions.

They are also better positioned to pursue strategic international partnerships such as ARUA working with the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities in five priority areas: public health, the green deal, digital transformations, public governance, and inequality.

Professor Hettie Schönfeldt, the director of the ARUA Centre of Excellence in Food Security (ACoE) at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, said that African universities should scale up the inter-disciplinary, inter-partner approach employed to mitigate the severe pandemic impact on all kinds of markets.

“With the primary functions of research, teaching and learning, universities are expected to find solutions to current everyday realities and, during a pandemic, must continue to be seen as custodians of trusted science-based information,” she said.

Collaboration is key

Professor Barnabas Nawangwe, the vice-chancellor of Makerere University in Uganda, said there was a need for African universities to collaborate more through organisations such as ARUA and RUFORUM.

“COVID-19 has exposed the brutal selfishness of nations in the face of a pandemic,” Nawangwe said. “We can no longer rely on the developed world to solve our problems. We must collaborate or perish.”

Professor Adipala Ekwamu, the executive secretary of RUFORUM, said universities had to help societies to reimagine the future by working to “develop new ideas, promote innovations and creativity, and provide alternative scenarios for policy consideration”.

He said it was important that African universities help to build local capacity to respond rather than “waiting for masks from China”. Moreover, universities should work with governments to create “strong centres for foresight studies and data science”. This will guide policy interventions and preparedness. He also emphasised investment in research and innovation.

COVID-19’s challenges

Ekwamu said COVID-19 has highlighted the inequality in access in the world, not only to food but basic livelihood issues including health and education, which are key drivers for resilience. The pandemic has also highlighted how interconnected the world is in terms of vulnerability. This requires partnerships and collaboration.

“It has also highlighted inadequacies in the preparedness of most African universities for online teaching and learning [which is worse at the basic level of education],” Ekwamu said.

He pointed out the potential for innovation and response. “For example, in Tunisia, South Africa and Uganda [Makerere], institutions have not only been coming up with innovative technologies to address the COVID-19 pandemic, but also with innovations in food processing to produce different value-added food products,” Ekwamu explained.

Research on diseases essential

According to Anne Kamau, the director of the ARUA Centre of Excellence for Non-Communicable Diseases (ACE-NCD) based at the University of Nairobi, the COVID-19 situation should serve as a lesson to African universities and governments on how important supporting research on infectious diseases as well as emerging and re-emerging diseases is.

She said preventive medicine, preparedness for health disasters, response and mitigation should be included.

“ARUA has 13 centres of excellence that focus on various developmental issues, including the one on non-communicable diseases. Perhaps it is time that ARUA and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) considered establishing a centre of excellence on emerging and re-emerging diseases, paying special attention to infectious diseases,” Kamau said.

“This should be done with the understanding that, whereas it is important to address non-communicable diseases (NCD), a highly infectious disease like COVID-19 will shift the focus from NCD, slow down an entire healthcare system, and shift the health spending to address the immediate crisis,” she pointed out.

Kamau said such a centre could include aspects of disaster response, managing disease risks (for instance, in the transport sector), health and disease management in relation to socio-economic development and healthcare system options for responding to disease epidemics.

Food security

Schönfeldt said that, because poverty, inequality and the already fragile food systems in Africa lack the resilience to overcome unexpected and unpredictable shocks such as COVID-19, research is essential.

“African universities must carry out research to provide evidence-based knowledge to strengthen food systems that deliver healthy diets as well as directly address food availability, accessibility and price in local food environments,” she said.

“Actions that can be implemented to alleviate the burden of food security during times of crisis include promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture and developing added-value agri-businesses in rural spaces,” Schönfeldt said, pointing out that the various linkages between the health of natural resources, agriculture, humans and the environment have to be recognised and researched.

Ekwamu said African universities must be part of “targeted support” to strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers who produce most of the food in developing countries. This means universities should address the broad agricultural value chain and fork-to-mouth linkages, he suggested.

“Besides strengthening their interaction in terms of research and development (R&D) activities with communities and other actors to address the bottlenecks, including production-market linkages, as well as enhancing skills development for employability and entrepreneurship, not only for students but for rural communities, especially for rural women and youth, African universities need to innovate and strengthen the use of digital technology in agriculture such as for advisory services and market support,” Ekwamu said.

Research in green economy important

He added that universities further need to strengthen their R&D capacity, for example, in green economy and production, along with developing inclusive programmes for food security and nutrition and improved future resilience. African universities also need to be part of policy frameworks and dialogue.

According to Ekwamu, African universities need to work with the private sector to promote the use of digital technology, not only in agriculture and health services, but also in industry.

“Importantly, African universities must intensify advocacy with governments, multinationals and regional and international agencies for massive investments in connectivity,” he said.

To do this, they must reform to operate in a different mode that prepares for different market segments and eventualities. They should also collaborate to harness capacities in different universities and provide mutual support, Ekwamu suggested.