Ways to Support Mathematics and Mathematicians in Developing Countries

Scientific life in lower-and-middle-income countries presents a number of unique challenges for the professors, postdocs, and students living and working in them, most of which have to do with isolation, high travel expenses and conference registration fees, and limited access to research funding. While naturally not all of the problems which researchers in lower-and-middle-income countries face can be solved by researchers working in countries with a more robust scientific infrastructure, there are nonetheless many things which may be done, both individually and institutionally, which can help to mitigate these problems and create a more inclusive, equitable, and integrated mathematical world. I have included a number of concrete suggestions in the following list, roughly in order of my view of their importance.

Refereeing papers from mathematicians in developing countries is one of the most important things one can do to support mathematics in lower-and-middle-income countries, and it doesn't involve travel or grant money! Please consider dedicating a percentage of your refereeing time to papers with authors based in the developing world.

There are many, many reasons to do this - less frenetic, higher quality reviewing, resulting in higher-quality papers, being a big one - but the one which affects researchers in developing countries most acutely is that we simply don't have the funding to pay for an author to physically travel to a conference every time we want to have a paper published in a prestigious venue. Requiring attendance at a conference as a prerequisite for publication in a 'high-impact' proceedings has the de-facto effect of devaluing a lot of good work which gets done in places where we can't afford to "pay to play", as well as sidelining the people who do it. 

Expanding one's collaboration network to include faculty in developing countries is another one of the best ways a researcher from a developed country can participate in the development of science in the the developing world, but it often takes a conscious decision to seek it out (and perhaps some failed attempts) before it happens.

Publication metrics are often given an importance in developing countries which is much greater even than it is in the developed world, typically in an (overzealous) attempt to make evaluation of researchers "objective", and these metrics can very directly affect hiring, promotion, and salary decisions, so citation counts (unfortunately) really matter. Also, citing papers with authors in the developing world helps to let their colleagues know that their work is noticed abroad, which can be important for one's general professional development at home. Of course, one has an ethical obligation to cite the papers whose techniques one uses directly, but there is somewhat more flexibility in the literature review or discussion sections of articles. When in doubt, aim to be inclusive in one's citations. Similarly, if you're visiting an institution in a developing country to give a talk, it's nice to mention it if someone at that institution or in that country has work in the same or a related topic. You can't assume that an author's colleagues have any idea what they do or if it's interesting or important to people elsewhere, even when those colleagues and the author are at the same institution, and a brief comment in a talk from a visitor can help to communicate this.

This is more subtle and difficult than it first appears. Different countries have different grading systems, most countries have less grade inflation than the US, and there are vast differences between countries in what is considered a "good" recommendation letter, so it's not always easy - and often very difficult - to make fair comparisons between students from a country whose educational system is unfamiliar and one from your home country. Also, application fees can be prohibitive for students from developing countries and their families, and taking the GRE can involve an expensive trip to a testing center in some other city, and sending the results involves increased costs which increases the burden on students and their families. Increasing the number of acceptances in a systematic way typically requires a decision to recruit from certain places, and then to familiarize oneself with the grading and evaluation practices there, so that fair comparisons are more likely to be made.  Reduced application fees would also be helpful.

The LMS and EMS both have programs in Africa. I would love to see more, but it's a great start. The AMS has nothing comparable, although they do help support some of the large, regional meetings, such as the Mathematical Congress of the Americas, of which there isn't anything comparable in Europe.