Building Peace, Brokering Partnerships: The Global Knowledge Initiative Fosters Science Partnerships Between Pakistan, Afghanistan, and MENA Countries

Shelled, bombed, and burned, Kabul Polytechnic—one of Afghanistan’s leading engineering and technical training universities—fell to looters after several mujahidin groups destroyed the campus in their quest to wrestle control of the capital during the 1990s. What had once served as a top university to quench young Afghanis’ thirst for skills in computer science, architecture, transport engineering, and construction was reduced to rubble.

Afghanistan’s universities are among the many casualties of the war there. Whereas some institutions like Kabul Polytechnic have received aid for reconstruction, several others remain hollow with too few facilities, staff or the necessary research and training tools and equipment to respond to the demand for tertiary education. In February of last year 68,000 students nationwide took an entrance exam to compete for just 6,000 slots throughout the Afghan tertiary education system.

For research, the situation is even bleaker: few active researchers have been able to maintain productive research careers in agriculture, health, water, energy, and other critical fields during the years of conflict.

A call for a regional approach to stabilization

“A focused, coherent, and long-term approach to Afghan and regional stability is necessary to get Afghanistan out of its vicious cycle of insecurity, insurgency, impunity, and corruption,” writes J. Alexander Thier, who edited a volume of essays, released by the US Institute of Peace, called The Future of Afghanistan. Describing the degree to which regional integration has yet to be harnessed as a source of stability for Afghanistan, Thier explains, “Regional competition continues to undermine Afghanistan's long-term prospects, whereas renewed regional cooperation could provide a significant security and economic boost in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region as a whole.”

Franco Frattini, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, echoed both Thier’s and President Obama’s recent remarks in Cairo when the President called for a “new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries” (President Obama, June 4, 2009, Cairo). The Italian Minister affirmed the role that regional science cooperation can make for countries emerging from poverty or from war. During the 2009 G8 Meeting he argued, “Scientific cooperation can make a unique contribution to the cause of regional stabilization.” He noted, however, that demand for assistance constructing knowledge partnerships far outstrips the supply of organizations capable of catalyzing them: “The enormous potential for regional cooperation has thus far not been adequately exploited.”

COMSTECH, NASIC and others join the Global Knowledge Initiative in building research and training capacity through partnership

Enabling regional collaborations in science, technology, and innovation is one way to forge stability while sustaining the Afghani research and training system. To do this Afghanistan must work with its neighbors to create a regional environment conducive to Afghanistan's success. Research on issues such as drought-tolerant crops, agro-industrial processing, low-cost energy production, and information and communication technologies (ICT) are among many areas relevant not just to Afghani researchers and trainers but to Pakistanis and others in the region too.

International institutions, such as UNESCO, point to the need to significantly ramp up such efforts in the region, emphasizing that “the challenge for the international community today is to develop a regional network of cultural and scientific cooperation to reconstruct the institutions in Afghanistan.”

Two regional science bodies—COMSTECH, which represent Ministers of Science and Technology in 57 Islamic countries across the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere, and NASIC (the Network of Academies of Science of Islamic Countries)—join the Global Knowledge Initiative in a new program to link Pakistani and Afghani scientists and lecturers together.

In partnership with the Global Knowledge Initiative and several other organizations, dual-country teams will identify shared objectives related to building research and training capacity in key research disciplines--agriculture, health, and energy among them. Through a facilitated process led by the Global Knowledge Initiative, the teams will develop a roadmap for conducting joint trainings and research, sharing resources, and fostering sustained collaborations.

In determining the best approach for implementation of this initiative, the Global Knowledge Initiative conducted an analysis of current efforts funded by the US National Academy of Science, the US Agency for International Development, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and others. Many of these cater to partnerships that link US universities and researchers to either Pakistani or Afghani partners. Few efforts center on joint Pakistani-Afghani partnerships. Linking these current efforts together to inject a regional integration element where possible constitutes one of the cornerstones of the Global Knowledge Initiative’s approach.

Mapping shared science, technology and innovation priorities in the regional context

Atta-ur-Rahman, Secretary General of COMSTECH and former Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology for Pakistan, and Dr. Ahmad Durrani, Vice Chancellor of Lahore University of Management Science, are among the champions helping to craft a process of priority identification for the regional initiative. Possible collaboration vehicles between Afghani and Pakistani science and technology (S&T) practitioners, particularly university-based researches, teachers, entrepreneurs, and students, are several. The most promising of the possible programs include:

• Short-term technical training programs of Afghani scientists by Pakistani experts. The trainings would cater to Afghani and Pakistani science lecturers and researchers and would be held in relevant Pakistani or Afghani universities, laboratories, or COMSTECH training facilities.
• Joint research initiatives between Afghani and Pakistani scientists based on the countries’ articulated needs and research areas of interest. Joint research proposals would be designed by teams of Afghani and Pakistani researchers through a facilitated process of shared needs/expertise.
• Delivery of open (online) educational resources to Afghanistan via the Virtual University of Pakistan. The Virtual University (VU) of Pakistan uses satellite television broadcasts and the Internet to deliver quality academic course material to over 47,000 predominately Pakistani students. Such a program could leverage the course content of VU to increase the access and quality of higher education available to Afghani students.
• Extend the Pakistan HEC National Digital Library (DL) to Afghanistan. DL is a program to provide researchers within public and private universities in Pakistan and non-profit research and development organizations with access to international scholarly literature based on electronic delivery.
• Provide training opportunities for women in employment-ready fields. This program would involve the targeted training of females in areas such as nursing and education, which would prepare them for employment in these fields.
• Involve Afghani researchers in a joint Afghanistan-Pakistan “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” training program. COMSTECH currently offers short-course training on innovation and entrepreneurialism to OIC member states’ professionals, managers, and researchers working in the public and private sectors. These trainings could be customized to serve an emerging class of innovators and entrepreneurs who hail from both countries.

The first deliverable of the regional partnership initiative will be a menu of preliminary interventions that can be magnified by other organizations (e.g., USAID) once additional funding mechanisms are identified.

Leveraging partners worldwide

Establishment of the Advancing Afghan Agriculture Alliance and the Afghan Merit Scholars program represent two initiatives that demonstrate the potential of S&T collaborations for reconstruction and stabilization. USAID together with Purdue University and several US land grant universities have been among the few active institutions exploring ways to boost the research and education capacity of Afghanistan through partnership. “At Kabul University, research farms and plant production equipment were destroyed, and before Purdue's involvement the school had no agricultural laboratory space or equipment,” Kevin McNamara, Assistant Director of International Programs in Agriculture at Purdue, has said. “Most of the skill-requiring jobs in the country are held by foreigners. So it is essential for Afghanistan's development that people from there are trained to participate.”

The Technology-Based Industrial Vision and Strategy for Pakistan’s Socio-Economic Development promotes collaboration as a way forward for Pakistan’s development too. It calls for the need to forge “close linkages between science and technology institutions in Pakistan” with other institutions “through exchange of personnel and promotion of joint research programs between institutions so that the quality of the scientific effort in Pakistan can be improved.”

The Global Knowledge Initiative’s regional program reflects Pakistan’s and other middle-income countries’ increasing prioritization of the need for greater investment in S&T and knowledge partnerships. Key partners of the initiative include: the Library of Alexandria, Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan, Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS), Afghanistan Academy of Science, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, Pakistan Academy of Science, Pakistan Virtual University, Supercourse’s MENA Initiative, The Academy of Sciences of the Developing World (TWAS), and the US National Academy of Sciences/USAID Program for US-Pakistan Joint Research.

Please contact the Global Knowledge Initiative for more information or if you or your organization are interested in furthering this work.

Contributor: Sara E. Farley

Photo credits: Purdue University photo/Kevin McNamara; COMSTECH; www.afghanistanwatch.org.