The CFK Model for Africa
Africans Building Africa for Africa in the World.
The CFK Justification and Strategy
In the developed world, whilst many academic leaders recognize the value added of research conducted in Africa with the help of local experts, there are few effective routes to connectivity and few groups able to facilitate research opportunities de novo. CFK seeks to exploit this reservoir of interest through focusing on building partnerships that would not otherwise occur between Africans in Africa by with scholars and counterparts in the developed world. The first tangible outcome would be the connectivity between informed, local knowledge-based decision-making with cutting edge international research.
Significant Problems to be Addressed by The CFK
Many African universities are unable to offer research opportunities to their academic staff,
while other research institutions in
Africa fail to fulfill the aspirations of staff to build substantive careers as researchers.
This truncation of career horizons limits the building up of expertise in both depth and breadth
and spirals dependence upon externally sourced solutions. The result is not only research and development
that is potentially sub-optimal to local conditions, but a frequent disconnect from local decision making
that actually delivers the practical benefits. A more insidious problem is the barrier this creates to
Africa playing its full part in the global knowledge pool.