FLICKR, NICOLAS RAYMONDWe are writing to comment on your November 12 article entitled “Funding Research in Africa” by Paula Park. The article appropriately identified a very real problem—the dearth of basic research funding for scientists in many African countries. While the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Wellcome Trust, and others fund a considerable amount of research in Africa, many of those awards are made to non-African institutions and scientists, who in turn sub-contract for collaborations with their African colleagues. However, Park apparently did not appreciate that the proportion of awards made directly to African scientists and institutions is steadily increasing, and now accounts for about 40 percent of Wellcome Trust and 63 percent of NIH funding for research in Africa.
As a prominent example of this increasing focus on direct funding to African investigators, the NIH and the Wellcome Trust recently established a collaborative program, called Human Health and Heredity in Africa (H3Africa). H3Africa directly funds African scientists at African institutions to conduct research on the genomic and environmental bases of health problems of importance in Africa. Support is being provided for basic research, improved infrastructure, and training. One of the long-term goals of H3Africa is to increase the ability of African scientists to compete for international research funding.
NIH and the Wellcome Trust have, together, committed the equivalent of at least $76 million to H3Africa for the period 2012–2016, and both agencies will consider extending the program for an additional five years pending the ...
