A significant moment for chemistry in Africa took place in May when students in Liberia held the country’s first chemistry symposium. It offered the first significant opportunity for Liberia’s chemistry community to come together to discuss important issues affecting the field.
‘This was a historic day for us. The 14-year civil war through [to] 2003 pretty much erased science infrastructure – not just chemistry,’ says Adam Kallon, a Liberian chemistry teacher and symposium convenor. At the launch over 700 students gathered at the country’s Bong County University. Liberia’s students don’t just want to study chemistry to improve their job prospects, Kallon explains, they also want to help protect their country ‘from counterfeit pharmaceuticals to toxic mining practices’.
Liberia’s symposium feeds into broader efforts across the continent to boost chemistry, with chemical societies springing up in the last decade and dormant ones given a new lease of life. Last year, the Chemical Society of Zambia transitioned from a voluntary organisation into a professional body that can set national ISO chemical standards. Key members of the society now hold senior positions at the Zambia Bureau of Standards and Zambia National Laboratory Association allowing greater collaboration between the organisations.
The Kenya Chemical Society, despite being one of the oldest professional bodies in east Africa, faced a big drop in activities in the early 2000s. It has recently undergone a rebirth – modernising its infrastructure, providing professional references for employers and coordinating online training. To underline its resurgence it will jointly host its largest ever chemistry event later this month.
In 2022, the Gambia’s chemical society also took off, finally overcoming the country’s cumbersome bureaucracy. Members are now providing input into legislation that would otherwise be written without any chemistry contribution, explains Sainey Cham, president of the society. ‘It’s futile to think a nation can prosper without chemistry,’ he told Chemistry World.
‘It’s a quiet renaissance,’ agrees Mats’olo Seloanyane, a founding steering committee member of the Chemical Society of Lesotho (CSL), launched in 2022 after a year of fighting with authorities to get the society recognised. Lesotho boasts a number of chemistry emigres who have gone to South Africa or Australia and excelled but many don’t currently contribute to their home country, says Seloanyane. So, the pandemic, ‘was the time of bringing in the right minds who have an interest to do so’, she adds.
The CSL has already been taking part in on-the-ground initiatives. Last year, the largest illegal rubbish dump on the edge of the capital Maseru caught fire blanketing residents in choking smoke, Seloanyane says. ‘You can imagine the toxins from whatever chemicals that are thrown there and it affects the water bodies that are around there – it is unbearable,’ she adds. So, the society organised a webinar bringing together the municipality, residents and the Lesotho health ministry. As scientists they explained the health implications and offered solutions using accessible language, she recalls.
The Lesotho and Gambia chemistry societies are now working with The Federation of African Societies of Chemistry (FASC), founded in 2006 with the technical support of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the Royal Society of Chemistry. The aim is to help these societies support each other as they develop. This collaborative approach should help smaller societies to punch above their weight, allowing their chemists to feed their expertise into continental bodies that set laws on drug safety or disaster remediation protocols.
Seloanyane says that her PhD is currently preparing her for a career as a petroleum engineer specialising in geothermal technologies. She adds that, across Africa, students grow up with the message that chemistry is for students wishing to pursue medicine. ‘I didn’t know there’s more to chemistry than that.’ This misconception is now something that chemical societies are increasingly in a position to challenge.
