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Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, the Founding Director for the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana, has called for global reparations to rebuild Africa’s scientific capacity.
He said the call for reparations stemmed from the neglect of higher education in Africa during the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s, when the Bretton Woods institutions advised many African governments to shift attention from tertiary to basic education.
He said that policy crippled the continent’s scientific capacity and led to the brain drain that weakened universities for decades.
He made these remarks while delivering a keynote address at the Fourth Conference of the African Plant Breeders Association (APBA), currently ongoing at the Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, on the theme: “Winning the Race Against Food Insecurity, Malnutrition, and Climate Change through Genetic Innovation.”
Prof. Danquah, also the Chairman of the Governing Board, Ghana National Research Fund; GCHERA World Agriculture Prize Laureate (2018); Africa Food Prize Laureate (2022) said Africa’s future food security depended on rebuilding the human and institutional capacity to drive agricultural transformation.
The 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report had revealed that, 307 million Africans faced hunger even though the continent held 65 per cent of the world’s remaining arable land.
Prof. Danquah argued that the paradox could only be resolved through strategic investment in higher education and science.
He called on the global community to support Africa’s scientific renaissance through reparative investment, including debt cancellation for higher-education loans, endowments for African universities, and the creation of an African Talent Fund for Plant Breeding.
Prof. Danquah served as the Inaugural President of the APBA from 2019 to 2023, playing a pivotal role in guiding the Association’s establishment and early growth.
During the opening of the conference on October 06, 2025, Prof. Danquah was presented with a Meritorious Service Award in recognition of his leadership and contributions to the Association’s development and mission.
Drawing lessons from WACCI’s success in training over 120 PhD plant breeders for 20 countries in Africa and Ghana’s leadership in establishing the Ghana National Research Fund (GNRF), Prof. Danquah emphasised that African-led institutions could transform agriculture if given consistent support.
“Scientific excellence is the currency of influence in the global development arena, without which Africa could remain a consumer of knowledge rather than a producer,” he stated.
He urged African governments and international partners to act boldly to rebuild Africa’s knowledge systems and secure a food-secure future for the continent.
