Biosciences key to food security-GOVT
Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education Science and Technology, Lonley Magreta has said science and technology are priorities and hold the key to unlock food security issues in view of the effects of climate change.
Speaking during the Southern Africa Network for Biosciences (SANBio) workshop in Salima, Magreta said effects of climate change can only be dealt with by having good and relevant technologies to counter attack the effects, which have brought diverse and enormous impacts to communities.
“This monitoring and evaluation workshop is very important as it will highlight and give pointers to where we stand in terms of progress and the challenges encountered, it is therefore, important that
coordinators become well conversant with technologies which are the fundamentals of monitoring in research and development projects,” he said.
Vice Chancellor of Luanar, Professor George Kanyama Phiri said the designation of Luanar as a Fish Node has greatly enhanced visibility of the university and aboard making it a centre of excellence.
“Because of this, Luanar is now offering a PhD programme in Aquaculture and Fisheries on behalf of a consortium of more than 42 universities, in the same vein the University will continue to strive
hard to remain centre of excellence in science and technology so as to contribute to the national agenda of improving livelihoods of the rural communities,” he said.
Deputy Vice Chancellor also coordinator for New Partnership for Africa Development (Nepad) Regional Fish Node Professor Emmanuel Kaunda said the workshop which follows successful Nepad SANBio Business Plan (BP) 2013-18 which was validated by member states and endorsed by SADC
Ministers of Science and Technology in 2014, will also help the implementation of a results management system.
“The results will include a full life cycle approach for describing what SANBio’s efforts are designed to do, what they are doing, how they are progressing, their expected outputs and measures of potential
impact,” he said
