A research project on the use of waste to produce electricity in host communities for their own use is being implemented in Ghana.

The four-year project (2020-2023) known as the ‘Hybrid Waste-to-Energy (W2E) Pilot Project in the Ashanti Region,’ is being funded by the German government with an amount of €5.8 million.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MESTI), Ghana, through the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) in Accra, conducted feasibility studies on renewable energy sources in Ghana under the supervision of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), College of Science and Technology (CCST) has matriculated twenty-four students pursuing various post-graduate degree programs at the college for the 2020/2021 academic year.

The ceremony took place on Friday 15th January 2021. At the CSIR Food Research Institute (CSIR-FRI).

During the ceremony, the staff of the college including lecturers, heads of departments, and the leadership of the Student Representative Council (SRC) took turns to welcome the students and the various programs were introduced to the students and what it takes to pass these programs of study.

Professor Mark Appiah, the President of the college who gave an overview of the institution, said CCST was established in 2012 and governed by a twelve-member governing board.

He reiterated that, the college which is affiliated to the University of Cape Coast (UCC), offers Master’s degree level programs including Master of Science and Master of Philosophy (MSc/MPhil) in Climate Change and Integrated Natural Resources Management, and, Natural Sciences and Environmental Management. The institution also offers MPhil in Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Food Science and Technology, Fisheries, Soil Health and Environmental Resources Management, Industrial Animal Nutrition and Feed Technology.

In order to promote demand-driven research, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Institute for Scientific and Technological Information (CSIR-INSTI) has designed four digital outputs to support and provide alternative methods of extension delivery.

The four outputs, namely; the CSIR Technologies; CSIR Space; Kuafo Market Place; and Agritech Mobile Advisor, designed to be hosted on the Digital Agriculture Innovation Hub (DAIH), set up by the CSIR-INSTI, as part of the Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) programme.

The MAG programme, is a five-year Ministry of Food and Agriculture project, being funded by the Canadian Government through Global Affairs Canada, focusing attention on demand-driven research and alternative methods of extension delivery, with the objective of increasing productivity through intensive farming.

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, one of Africa’s renowned scientists, has underscored the need for the continent “to be determined, aggressive, ambitious, and passionate about her affairs.

“As a people, we should not be afraid of breaking new ground. The world may want to intimidate us; that we are so far behind, that we cannot catch up.

“No! We don’t have to run after them. However, we can learn from the achievements and mistakes of others whilst charting our path and preserving our cultural heritage and our time-tested value systems,” he said.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, in a speech delivered at the investiture of Prof. Mark Appiah as President of the CSIR College of Science and Technology (CCST), during a ceremony at Fumesua near Kumasi, indicated that “Africa’s poverty gap was a technological gap.”

A team of research scientists from the Crops Research Institute (CSIR) have established that a supposed apple tree planted five years ago at Wiamoase in the Ashanti Region is a specie of fig.