By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Executive Director of the Institute for Research and Promotion Alternatives in Development (IRPAD), Dr. Mamadou Goita has warned against usage of some technologies that damage the ecosystem.
Goita in a zoom meeting with other environmental Activists on Monday, stated that Africa is fast becoming a dumping ground for technologies that are damaging to health, agriculture and the ecosystem generally.
Dr Goita noted, “We are not anti-technologies, rather we are for technologies that do not jeopardize our interests as individuals or continent.
“We are firmly convinced that technologies are introduced as ways to improve people’s lives. Since they impact our lives, we should not be forced into accepting them without adequate assessment.
“We should be concerned with technologies such as gene editing because we are becoming dumping grounds for such experimentations.”
He emphasised that it is time for Africans to unite and reject what is pushed to us and also critically assess what comes in to us.
He warned that Nigeria and other countries that are on the path of rapidly admitting genetic engineering should retrace their steps and ask questions from countries such as Burkina Faso who have tried it and have rejected them.
“GMOs should not be part of our food system because it would negatively affect our health and biodiversity.
“Technologies such as gene drives can easily exterminate valuable species. Others such as geo-engineering pose unique threats to Africa as the continent will play second fiddle in the technological geo-politics and will end up being exposed to worse climate change impacts.
“We cannot sit and digest all that we get without examining the implication for our health, our environment, and our future.
“African governments should come together to say no to unproven technologies, otherwise we would be lost in the new technologies.”
The environmental activist based in Mali also noted that, “As an organization that is concerned about the health of the earth, we have noted negative changes in our culture and traditions due to the intrusion of rapidly deployed technologies. Some of these threaten to upturn our livelihoods and human rights across the continent with great impacts on agriculture, health and climate.”
One of Nigeria’s non-governmental organisation, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), which organised the meeting as her first Conversation in 2022 in collaboration with Africa Technology Assessment Platform (AfriTAP), also agreed that science is not neutral, and it is dangerous for policy makers to claim to have certainty of safety technological products developed outside the continent and presented as though they were developed here.
The Africa Technology Assessment Platform (AfriTAP) brings together African civil society groups, social movements, independent scientists, lawyers and media professionals working together to assess the implications of new emerging technologies on the continent.