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Building on US President Barack Obama’s promise to promote science as a tool for diplomacy, made last year during his speech in Cairo University, two US congressmen introduced a bill to fund research and education in Muslim-majority countries.

Egyptian-born Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail welcomed the news, reported in Nature Medicine. He did stress that not all countries in the region will be able to make use of the funding, since they lack the infrastructure to conduct research.

While it is great that such initiatives are finding their way into US politics, I’m curious how they will be perceived in the Muslim world. The US need to work within a framework of distrust towards the West, that was sadly harboured over several years in this region. This inevitably complicates things, as reach-out attempts are seen as coming with strings attached.

The other problem is the wide disparity among the countries that compromise the Muslim world. While the approach can work with some of the better off countries, such as those in the Middle East, other nations do not have the infrastructure needed to make use of this funding opportunity. These countries need help in developing a science community and putting together an infrastructure that can help them make use of the US extended hand.

In order for these efforts to really be effective, the US will need to look at each country individually, rather than looking at the Muslim world as a whole. They also need to work with local partners, who have an intricate knowledge of the region, to determine what is best for each country.

Sustained efforts will hopefully reverse the distrust built over the years. It will take time, but in this age of science, there is probably no better way to reach out then through science diplomacy.

You can read the full article “Science seen as olive branch to the Muslim world” in Nature Medicine through Nature Middle East’s Our Picks section.