establishment of the third Component of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in Cape Town, South Africa.

 

New York, May 23, 2007

 

The Permanent Missions of India, Italy and South Africa to the United Nations are pleased to announce the establishment of the third Component of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in Cape Town, South Africa.

The official joint announcement was made on May 23rd, 2007 at the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Rome.

 The new Cape Town Component joins the two existing Components of ICGEB located in Trieste, Italy (which also hosts the General Directorate of the Centre) and in New Delhi, India.
The establishment of a third ICGEB Component in Africa is a natural consequence of the expertise acquired in twenty years of successful activity. It aims to tackle the ever-increasing divide between Africa and the rest of the developing world in biotechnology. The Italian Government brought the issue to the attention of the G8 Summit of Gleneagles, in July 2005, which noted its importance in the Final Communiqué of the meeting. After less than two years of intense consultations, and based on the South African offer to host and partially fund the Component, the new laboratory, located at the University of Cape Town, is now taking its first steps: a considerable achievement in terms of time and international political consensus, which will require substantial additional efforts from the international community.
Research in Cape Town will focus mainly on the development of new vaccines against serious infectious diseases that afflict the African Continent, such as AIDS, malaria, hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis. The ICGEB aims to improve the quality of life of the African populations, also by finding biotechnological solutions that are safe, ecologically compatible and appropriate to local conditions, with a view to increasing the agricultural productivity of the Country and reducing poverty and the precarious nature of the African food resources.
The establishment of the Cape Town Component represents a concrete example of the way the international community can take advantage of advanced research to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. It provides ICGEB with an exceptional tool to fulfil its mandate and an opportunity to enhance its visibility.
Trieste, New Delhi and Cape Town are three Components of a single mission: developing knowledge and scientific excellence, as well as their access worldwide.
Since 1987, and by virtue of the generosity of the Governments of Italy and India, ICGEB has provided its Member States with a Centre of excellence for research and training dedicated to the needs of the developing world, through its two original Components of Trieste and New Delhi. The international consensus raised by the Centre in its first twenty years of activity certainly represented an important stimulus for South Africa, one of the most representative Member States of the ICGEB, which has decided to fund the initial establishment of this Component.