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   There are estimated to be about two hundred and twenty nuclear fission research reactors in the world today. Only seven of those are on the African continent. Africa has seventeen percent of the world’s population and is projected to have the strongest growth in the future. Yet, Africans have access to only three percent of the world’s nuclear research capacity. Marguerite Leonardi is the senior advisor at NPC Consulting  & Engineering and Professor Vincent Lukanda Mwamba is the Commissaire Général of the Commissariat Général à l’Energie Atomique. These two nuclear experts recently explained why the lack of African research reactor is a major problem and they urged that the research reactor in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo be restarted.
     Some might think that nuclear research is not a priority for African nations. The term ‘research reactor’ might be part of the problem because such facilities cover a lot more than just nuclear research and development. There are many applications for the peaceful use of nuclear energy in such fields as health, agriculture, education and general industrial development. In order to take advantage of such applications, the possession of research reactors is critical.
     There is a broad consensus that the peaceful applications of nuclear energy are universally beneficial and that is even more the case with developing countries. These applications include:
• radiological imagery for the early detection of diseases,
• radiotherapy to fight cancers,
• medical/veterinary and agricultural applications of radioisotope tracers,
• sterilization of insects for environmentally friendly pest control,
• the irradiation of food for better conservation and compliance with export regulations,
• the use of radioisotope techniques in soil and water conservation strategies,
• the use of radiation to obtain more resistant crops and better yields,
• and the production of electricity with a low carbon footprint.
    Of all the continents on Earth, Africa has the largest energy gap to close in the coming years. The International Energy Agency says that only forty five percent of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to electricity and in thirteen African nations, seventy five percent of the population do not have access to electricity at all. Nuclear energy, especially with the arrival of micro and small modular reactors, is expected to play a critical role along with other sources of low-carbon energy generation in the electrification of Africa.
   It is taken for granted that nuclear research reactors are an important first step towards the introduction of an nuclear energy program. They are needed to carry out studies that support nuclear power plants over their whole lifecycle, including training for nuclear power plant operators. In the context of African nations that want to introduce nuclear power in the future, research reactors play an important part in laying the foundation and facilitating public understanding of the beneficial applications of nuclear power. Unlike the restricted access to nuclear power plants, access to research reactors by the general public is easy and safe. Such access to a nuclear facility plays an important part in generating vocation interest in the nuclear sciences and quieting public fears about nuclear energy and radiation.

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