Africa is burdened with food shortages and plant, animal and human diseases. Some of these can be ameliorated by adopting genome editing technologies such as CRISPR. This technology is considered better than its predecessors, Zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), because it is cheaper, easy to use, has high gene modification efficiency and is less time consuming. CRISPR technology has wide applications in the African context ranging from crop and animal improvement to disease diagnosis and treatment as well as improving food shelf life, organoleptic properties and food safety. It has the potential to bring back species of organisms that are extinct. However, some African countries have not taken advantage of the potential of CRISPR to solve many of their problems. This paper explores possible applications of CRISPR towards improvement of African livelihoods.

非洲饱受粮食短缺和动植物，人类疾病的困扰。其中一些可以通过采用基因组编辑技术（例如CRISPR）得到改善。该技术被认为比其前身锌指核酸酶（ZFN）和转录激活因子样效应核酸酶（TALEN）更好，因为它价格便宜，易于使用，基因修饰效率高且耗时少。CRISPR技术在非洲范围内具有广泛的应用范围，从作物和动物的改良到疾病的诊断和治疗，以及改善食品的货架期，感官特性和食品安全性。它有可能带回已灭绝的生物物种。但是，一些非洲国家没有利用CRISPR的潜力来解决许多问题。