UM6P Launches “Voice of Africa” Event to Amplify Africa's Voice

Ben Guerir – The Mohamed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Ben Guerir is organizing from October 10 to 14 a scientific and cultural event under the theme “The Voice of Africa” to address some of the economic issues that the African continent is facing.

Scheduled in parallel to the Marrakech annual meetings which gather the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, UM6P seizes this chance to speak for the African viewpoint on problems that are essential to the development of the continent.

“The Voice of Africa side event marks an important milestone in our academic excellence, the promotion of research, and our commitment to the future of our continent which coincides with these crucial global gatherings,” said UM6P President Hicham El Habti in his opening speech.

“We aim to create a space where Africa’s voices could be heard loudly and clearly, and where our continent’s challenges and opportunities could be fully explored in harmony with those of world class researchers, experts, and entrepreneurs,” El Habti stressed.

UM6P’s President Hicham El Habti

One of the panelists, Jacques Attali, economist and author, said that Africa’s agricultural challenges are “immense and almost inaccessible.”

According to Attali, the world population’s constant growth could reach up to 9.5 billion by 2050. Therefore, the African population could grow to some 2.5 billion people, with Nigeria’s population size overtaking the US.

For this purpose, Africa’s agricultural production must double, as the continent’s current agricultural output is not sufficient to feed Africa’s inhabitants .

Addressing the issue of global warming, Founder of Centre for Research and Teaching in Environmental Geoscience (CEREGE) Daniel Nahon said that Global warming needs to be examined using a variety of methods.

Significant social issues such as food security, climate change, loss of biodiversity, ecosystem services delivery, and green energy will never be resolved as long as they are dependent.

In order to communicate multidisciplinary innovations to small farmers and practitioners, Nahon contended that universities ought to be restructured as “African lighthouses.”

“It will take time to stabilize global warming and we will have to live in a warmer world for several decades,” Nahon concluded his speech.

The panelists at the “Voice of Africa’s” opening ceremony

Relating food to climate change issues, former President and Founder of International Plant Nutrition Institute Terry Roberts stated that the appropriate application of forage lowers greenhouse gas emissions.

“Anytime we can increase crop yields, we will produce more roots, more biomass, more residues which will capture more carbon,” Roberts said, stressing that “carbon and Nitrogen are closely linked together in the soil.”

For his part, Boeing Professor of Operations Research Dimitris Bertismas applauded UM6P’s “astonishing” progress over the past decade.

Having worked in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for several decades, Bertismas sees that technology allows food security improvement by the use of AI, remote sensing, and other technologies that were not available in the past.

Lastly, OCP Head of Corporate Strategy, Sustainability, and Innovation Ilias El Fali pointed out that one of the industries most susceptible to global warming is agriculture.

According to him, the only way to address this problem is through customized fertilization and soil health enhancement to balance nutrients in the soil. Only then, can sustainable practices be implemented to increase soil carbon storage.