Finding an influential voice for academies in Africa

Academies have made the transition from being learned societies to being select groups of eminent scholars who are often widely admired in their countries. At the beginning of this piece, I posited three requirements for a modern academy to be successful: the first was that the advice should be seen to be impartial, the second was that the academy should have an armoury of instruments that could be used to generate advice and the third was a government and civil society that was receptive of advice. I believe that the first two requirements are already in place for most of the African academies of science thanks to their participation in the activities of NASAC. The third remains somewhat problematic, as this is an area in which the academies and their members need to use their influence in order to ensure that their recommendations and statements are taken seriously.