Top scientists, policymakers and entrepreneurs gather for landmark conference in Senegal to encourage research.

Africa’s top scientists, policymakers and start-ups have gathered for a landmark conference aimed at stemming the continent’s brain drain and encouraging governments to nurture research in fields from virology to maths.

The organisers of the first Next Einstein Forum (NEF), concluding on Thursday near Senegal’s capital, Dakar, hope to reverse a situation in which Africa’s brightest talent feels compelled to move outside the continent to work at the cutting edge of research – and earn a decent salary.
“There are more African engineers working in the United States than in Africa,” organiser Thierry Zomahoun, chief executive of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, told an audience drawn from more than 100 different countries.

At least 17 Einstein Forum fellows, as well as young researchers from across the continent, shared their innovations with top policymakers, business leaders and academics.
One of them is Senegalese mathematician Mouhamed Moustapha Fall.

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Kenya is losing a third of its state budget – the equivalent of about $6 billion – to corruption every year, the country’s new anti-graft chief told Reuters, saying his agency was badly short of staff and modern equipment to tackle the problem.

Philip Kinisu, a retired auditor, said in an interview that he wanted to build on Kenyans’ discontent with corruption but the real drive to stamp it out had to come from public pressure for change.

While the finance minister disputed Kinisu’s estimate of the losses, blaming instead poor paperwork, President Uhuru Kenyatta has acknowledged corruption has reached levels that threaten national security.

Kenya has a history of multi-million dollar scandals that have failed to result in high-profile convictions. This has angered the public, who accuse top officials of acting with impunity and encouraging graft by those in lower posts.

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