Luanda - The director of the South Africa Department of Science and Innovation, Lindy Wegama, said on Friday, in Luanda, that the research project in the areas of Natural Sciences and Engineering and Technologies requires funding to create concrete programs to solve some issues affecting both countries.
The director, who was speaking at the Workshop on Development of Research and Innovation in Medical and Health Sciences, aimed at specialists from Higher Education institutions and Scientific research and Development institutions in Angola and South Africa, asked large contributors in natural sciences, engineering and technology to finance this project.
According to the South African director, science is a common factor in almost everything that is done to talk about industries, pollution or problems linked to treated water and energy. "Science, technology and innovation are involved in everything. However, we believe that with collaboration between Angola and South Africa, many headaches can be overcome, such as sexually transmitted diseases," she said.
“As we know from the history, we already have from 2020 to 2022 with the COVID-19 virus, we couldn't manage to solve Covid virus issue without collaboration. And we, in South Africa, managed to draw on some strengths during the pandemic and it was due to the collaborations we had. Therefore, we believe that this collaboration between the two countries can find some solutions” she emphasized
Lindy Wegama made it known that one of the main points of this workshop is to talk about malaria, as it is known that malaria is a disease that kills most people on the continent.
"We believe that, if we work together, Angola and South Africa can find and create some solutions to develop some research that can solve the malaria and HIV's issues, two diseases that kill a lot in our countries", she highlighted.
Angola and South Africa signed, back in 2008, a cooperation agreement in science and technology, the implementation of which was led by a Bilateral technical group and governed by an action plan for the period 2011-2021, with around 13 research projects in areas of natural sciences and engineering and technologies.
SL/MDS/CF/DOJ
