The summit aimed at furthering universities’ investment in African development and concluded with a town hall meeting and panel discussion.

Director of MSU African Studies Center James Pritchett said it was important for MSU to work with other institutions to promote development in Africa.

“We decided to carve out a space where we could talk about the ways in which we could collaborate — what are the appropriate ways of collaborating around the shared idea of fostering Africa’s development,” he said.

Among those present at the summit were African ambassadors, government agency workers and university representatives.

There are 160 faculty members who work with, for and in Africa at MSU whose work ranges from leading health care work to agricultural development to help found the University of Nigeria. MSU’s avid involvement in Africa as well as its strong African studies department led to partnerships with other organizations aimed at fighting poverty.

Agriculture, food and resource economics professor emeritus at MSU John Staatz said one of the ways to prevent African poverty is educating youth in agricultural technologies.

He said African youth are “the missing generation” in African agriculture — as the average age of farmers is 50 — and need to be trained for future agriculture development by both universities and other foundations.

“Part of the challenge is to figure out what each actor does well,” Staatz said. “I’d like to put the role of university in the context, not of U.S. universities helping advance development in Africa, but rather international scientific partnerships.”

Chief of staff and Senior Fellow of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa Daniel Karanja said Africans from all walks of life should be involved in their nation’s development.

“We must engage the youth,” he said. “They are the future of Africa. We must bring new technology, and the people who use that technology well are the youth.”

Chief Economist for the United States Agency for International Development Steven Radelet said African nations have made significant developmental progress in the past decade and will continue to improve as more countries gain freedoms.

“Yes, they are fragile. Yes, they are imperfect. Yes, they have a long way to go. (But,) countries don’t become perfect democracies and well-governed overnight,” he said.

During a question-and-answer session, one woman, who identified herself as Jane, spoke about her experience as a farmer in Zimbabwe trying to produce enough food for her children.

Jane said women in Africa do not enjoy being given food, as it makes them feel helpless.

“We want to be empowered with the resources,” she said. “We don’t want cooking oil; we want to know how to produce cooking oil.”