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The Minister of Science and Technology, Derek Hanekom, will deliver the opening address at the launch of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's project on capacity building in legume sciences on Saturday, 1 December 2012, at the Sheraton Hotel, Pretoria, from 09:00.
 
Food security and poverty are key challenges confronting the African continent.  Compounding these problems is a lack of human capacity, and this creates an urgent need to train African scientists in the area of food security in an effort to address these challenges in a sustainable manner.
 
The partnership between the Department of Science and Technology, the Tshwane University of Technology and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will therefore train 12 master's students and 14 doctoral students in legume sciences in Africa for a period of five years to assist in the fight against poverty and promote long-term food security on the continent.  Out of the 14 doctoral students being trained, eight will be South Africans.
 
This will be done through the development of a "sandwich" programme, where students from selected African countries (Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa and Ethiopia) will undergo training at centres of excellence in the United States of America, Brazil, Australia and Africa.  The selection of these countries is strategically linked to existing programmes on legumes on the African continent.
 
The project’s academic and research partners include the Tshwane University of Technology, the Centre for Rhizobium Studies at Murdoch University in Australia, Brazil's Agricultural Research Corporation, Embrapa-Soja, the University of California in Los Angeles and selected laboratories in the United States of America, Brazil and Australia.