Northwestern’s Program of African Studies will receive a $3 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help improve HIV prevention programs in Nigeria, announced Prof. Richard Joseph, director of African Studies, during his Wednesday lecture.

Nigeria’s University of Ibadan, NU and other organizations will conduct field research in six Nigerian sites over three years, said Joseph, the grant’s principal investigator. Several NU graduate students are conducting preparatory research, and Nigerian and NU professors will travel to each country for training and research.

“This is the largest grant that the Department of African Studies has ever received,” Joseph said.

Joseph’s lecture, entitled, “Poverty and Governance in Africa: An Agenda for Action,” addressed his ideas for action against Africa’s problems of poverty and misgovernance.

“African citizens are not only poor compared to citizens of other developing nations, but compared to Africans of other decades as well,” Joseph said to an audience of about 80 students and faculty members. “They are living shorter, hungrier lives.”

An estimated 300 million Africans live in poverty today, and 100 million more will be living in poverty by 2015, Joseph said.

There is a critical link between the stalled development in African nations and the misgovernance common in those nations, Joseph said.

“The wide consensus on misgovernance is that there are no theories, no models, no conclusive strategies for transforming these countries,” Joseph said. “That’s where you come in.”

Joseph’s action plan consists of 15 points, focusing on improving African education and institutions, international partnerships, protecting rights of women and children, incentives for good government and creating a stronger sense of pan-Africanism.

Previous solutions to Africa’s problems focused on increasing aid without addressing corruption that drained aid from impoverished citizens, Joseph said. His answer was to “engage Africa” in helping itself.

“To reduce poverty, you need to grow the economy,” Joseph said. “In order to grow the economy, you need a good government system.”

By helping Africa help itself, America will benefit as well, he said.

“Nothing is more valuable to us as Americans than to have Nigeria develop or the Congo develop,” Joseph said. “It is very much in our interest to see African countries develop and really get on their feet.”

The speech was sponsored by seven student organizations. It followed up on a panel discussion last quarter about ending global poverty. Joseph was also featured in that panel.

“(Joseph) is huge in his field,” said Weinberg senior Veena Sriram, co-chairwoman of Globe, one of the student groups that sponsored the event. “We thought we should give students an opportunity to hear what he has to say in-depth and engage them in discussion.”

SESP senior Hiba Rahim said she liked the ideals Joseph presented, but wasn’t sure how the specific steps would actually work to encourage democracy and nation-state building.

“I liked the 15-step plan,” Rahim said. “I wish there were more of a practical plan of how I, as an individual, or NGOs, would be able to establish a good government.”

Joseph, who used to teach at the University of Ibadan, said he and his colleagues have been working on the grant for two years. The agreement was signed on Jan 9. The African Studies program did not receive the Gates Foundation’s approval to announce it until Wednesday.

After South Africa and India, Nigeria is estimated to have the world’s third-largest population of HIV-positive people. Joseph said the grant will fund “pioneering” research “that actually reflects the local culture, that makes use of the actual institutions, leadership and so on of those countries.”

Other educational initiatives have failed in that respect, he said.

“A lot of attention has really been focused on providing drugs, but the fact is there are so many people who are infected, so many people who could benefit from drug treatment, that it’s very important to focus on reducing the number of new infections,” Joseph said. “Otherwise, you could never catch up.”

The Daily’s Tina Peng contributed to this report.

Reach Laura Olson at [email protected].