Elementary my dear Ramotswe

Faster cheaper chemical production

Homogeneous catalysis is a process for making chemicals faster, cheaper and greener, leading to chemical feed stocks for plastics, detergents and other commercial products. Several years ago the South African company SASOL established its European Research Centre for Homogeneous Catalysis within the School of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews with the intention of bringing a number of African researchers to the centre. However, the process very quickly became two way.

The University's Dr Kishan Dholakia won an award from the UK Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council to assist him in promoting physics to the general public. At the SASOL SciFest in 2006 in South Africa, sections of an exhibition were used in a workshop with staff from St Andrew's University explaining the complex scientific concepts involved.

An interdependent relationship

It is clear that the relationship between Scotland and Africa is one of interdependence, of mutual support and mutual benefit. Many African nations provide markets for goods manufactured in Scotland. And groups such as Action for Southern Africa Scotland continue to build partnerships and co-operation between organisations in Scotland and South Africa.

More than one in ten of the overseas students in Scottish universities now come from African countries, following in the steps of people like Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, one of Africa's great statesmen. After he took his master's degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1952, he led Tanganyika through a peaceful process of independence and was a principal architect of the Organisation of African Unity. Between times he managed to translate Shakespeare into Kiswahili (but not Macbeth!).

From the Shetland Isles to Gambia

Nowadays valuable exchange programmes allow teachers or mwalimus from Scotland and Africa to swap places, enriching the experience of staff and students in both locations. Scotland's schools are also building their own links with African schools. In total 152 Scottish schools now have links with schools right across Africa, from Eritrea to South Africa and Lagos to Malawi. Pupils at Mossbank Primary School in the Shetland Islands, for example, who are geographically about as far away from Africa as you can be in Scotland, worked with Albreda Primary School in the Gambia for two years. One of their joint projects investigated the parallels between the ways traditional clothing are produced using local resources.

Malawi

Scotland has special links with Malawi, dating back to the country's association with the Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone, who is still held in high regard. The city of Blantyre in Malawi is named after Livingstone's birthplace in Scotland and he gave the country its previous name Nyasaland. Lake Nyasa, now Lake Malawi is the third largest lake in Africa. Malawi today faces a range of problems. It is one of the world's poorer countries, with low life expectancy, partly due to HIV/AIDs and poor economic prospects. The people of Malawi are engaged in a constant struggle to overcome these problems and build a healthier, fairer and more prosperous future. Scotland has committed itself to help them achieve their aims. And education will play a major part in the process.