Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), a non-governmental organisation, has advised Africa to create its own technologies in order to attract national development.
Mfoniso Anitia, member of HOMEF gave the advice via Zoom during a one say training on technology in collaboration with Africa Technology Assessment Platform
(AfriTAP).
The topic: ‘Technology Assessment in Africa’ aimed at the implications of unregulated entry of emerging technologies in Africa.
The meeting revealed that these
technologies are new ways of colonizing the world especially Africa.
Anitia stated that emerging technologies in the areas of genomics, artificial intelligence, automaton, and block chains are driving new forms of extraction and
re-ordering African society, economics and ecosystems with similar disruptive shocks to previous colonization waves.
READ ALSO: 51 Days After, Agip Oil Spillage Remains Unattended To, Community Laments
According to her, due to the weak or no regulatory systems in African countries, corporations now see and use Africa as a petri dish for technological adventurism.
Anitia noted that Africa has become the dumping ground for unwanted technological mistakes.
“The African continent has become a vital destination, testing and, dumping ground, for new technologies.
“Sectors such as agriculture, health, to finance and energy are being upturned by a wave of automation, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, big data, synthetic biology and geoengineering.
“While these technologies are often presented uncritically as being beneficial to Africa’s development, they have the potential to disrupt and threaten ecosystems and the communities that
depend on them,” she said.
Earlier, Mamadou GOÏTA,Executive Director of Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Development (IRPAD) in Africa said that Africa had become a testing ground for technologies.
“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.
READ ALSO: Maritime Security: Dakuku Peterside Laments Crimes In Waterways, Rates Gulf Of Guinea Most Dangerous
“We should be concerned with technologies such as gene editing because we are becoming dumping grounds for such experimentations.
“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,” he said.
Goita emphasised that it is time for us as Africans to unite and
reject what is pushed to us and also critically assess what comes in to
us.