ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some of the efforts being made by institutions and regional networks to improve the situation and will make suggestions about concrete actions through which these efforts could be enhanced and promoted. The importance to developing countries of higher education and research in the basic sciences has been addressed by numerous experts. Science faculties are among the major faculties of most African universities and admit large numbers of freshmen. Some of these students join applied fields such as medicine, pharmacology, and engineering after initial courses in the basic sciences. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the number of African universities was reasonably low, as was the number of students enrolled in them. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, the student population increased dramatically, as did the number of universities. Many basic sciences departments have not recovered from the devastation of the last two decades.
