In another step to promote science diplomacy, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has just appointed its first ever science and technology advisor. The new post is filled by Alex Dehgan, a conservation biologist with a degree in law.

According to a press release from USAID, Dehgan will restore science to its “rightful place within USAID” and also “ensure that USAID is the global leader on employing science, technology, and research to help solve traditional and persistent development challenges.”

It is particularly interesting that USAID is recognizing that science can solve many of the problems of the region, and have started implementing Obama’s promise to reach out to “the Muslim world” through science and technology cooperation.

Dehgan is an interesting choice because he has good previous experience in the Middle East. According to NatureJobs, he has previously served in Iraq to retrain weapons scientists in fields such as ecology and conservation biology.

According to SciDev.Net, Dehgan’s appointment will also bring a focus in USAID to conservation and environmental sciences.

It will be interesting to follow up on how the USAID will implement its expected budget increase for 2010 with a new focus on science and science collaboration, especially with the Muslim world.

When President Barack Obama came to Cairo, Egypt, for his “historic” address to the Muslim world, the highlight of his speech for many people was the promise of stronger science ties between the US and Muslim states.

The speech shed light on science diplomacy, which is using science to reach out to other countries to promote understanding and dialogue. The US has taken several steps in that direction, and researchers in the region should start feeling the effect of that soon.

Among the most important endeavours was extending the Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development (GLORIAD) to the Middle East. Previously, the network linked most of the northern hemisphere. However, the latest extension of the network brings it to India, Singapore and Egypt. This will allow scientists in the Middle East to be able to engage in collaborative work with peers around the world.

“What we are trying to do is establish a very high-speed network coming into Egypt that the broader Egyptian population of scientists and educators can take advantage of in collaborating with colleagues all over the world,” said Greg Cole, the principle investigator of GLORIAD’s US team.

During the announcement of the new phase of GLORIAD, dubbed the Taj extension, Cole explained that the three main aims behind building a partnership in Egypt are to:

1) increase applications between US and Egyptian science and educators community,

2) establish a sort of broader regional exchange point for science and education in the broader Middle East and Africa region,

3) increase people’s knowledge and awareness on what is possible with modern high-speed communication.

On GLORIAD’s webpage, the team states their aim is to “provides a stable, persistent, non-threatening means of facilitating dialog and increased cooperation between nations that often have been at odds through the past century.”

GLORIAD currently connects national research centres and science institutions in the US, Canada, Russia, China, Korea, the Netherlands, and Nordic countries. The high-speed fibre optic connection opens many opportunities, randing from allowing scientists to connect to perform real-time experiments across borders involving expensive equipment not readily available, to giving lectures to students using video-conferencing.

How can Egypt and the Arab world make the best of GLORIAD? Share your thoughts in the Nature Middle East forum