Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, pledged almost $19-million on Tuesday to help African nations develop more engineers and researchers. Money will be used to build five African “centers of excellence” in mathematics, technology, and science as part of the Next Einstein Initiative, a project backed by the physicist Stephen Hawking. The prime minister announced the commitment alongside the famous physicist, who has taken a position at Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. The assistance is part of a series of recent steps by Canada to strengthen educational ties with Africa. Last month Canadian and African universities announced they had created dozens of new partnerships.