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Policy Paper: Recommendations for Data and Biospecimen Governance in Africa
Policy Paper
1743
Monday, 8th February, 2021
In 2019, Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Africa (AESA) convened a team of experts (the Data and Biospecimen Governance Committee) with the aim of reviewing governance issues relevant to Africa around the use and re-use of data and biospecimens originating from African sources, through all stages of the research and translational chain. AESA is an initiative of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD). Here, we present a summary of guidelines and recommendations for data and biospecimen governance on the continent that can promote a participant-centric approach for research involving human participants, whilst enabling ethical research practices on the Continent and providing governance guidelines. These guidelines aim to facilitate the ethical use and re-use of data and biospecimens for the benefit of Africans by engaging political leadership, institutional leadership, funders and researchers to ensure intersectional accountability, de-colonisation of research attitudes and language, and by encouraging ethical research translation and innovation on the Continent