By Maore Ithula

A major research has established Africa suffers disconnect between science and research, which is turn has slackened its development pace.

The study, dubbed Africa Innovation Outlook 2010, was released in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last week. It was conducted by the African Science and Technology Indicators Initiative (ASTII) to map out the state of science and research on the continent.

The research covered 19 countries and aims at plugging information gaps on the state of science and scientific research on the continent.

MEN AT WORK: KARI Director Dr Simon Muriuki, shows visiting Zimbabwe Joint Command and Staff how small-scale farming is done through irrigation using long, connected pipes from raised plastic tanks.

The study concluded that Africa suffers from a lack of an adequate, African-led, Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) system of indicators.

This is attributed to the continent’s use of traditional development approaches that have ignored the role of measuring science and innovation activities in the socio-economic transformation of the continent.

The report observes that although Africa’s political leadership have recommended several schemes to advance the role of STI in development, there are no appropriate instruments to gauge the implementation of these schemes by member states of the African Union (AU).

Better Understanding

"Notwithstanding this development, the African Union Ministerial Conference in charge of Science and Technology (AMCOST) has repeatedly called for better understanding of, and improvement in, the state of STI on the continent.

Researchers in a Kari laboratory in Muguga. Photos: Maore Ithula/Standard

These calls have been embodied in outcomes of AMCOST decisions over the last decade. The ASTII initiative is a response to AMCOST calls to address the lack of evidence-based policy processes," the report says.

The first phase of the initiative was implemented in the countries selected for the research with funds provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and contributions from participating countries like Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Others are Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali together with Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

During release of the findings, Estherine Fotabong, the Environment Advisor at New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad’s) Planning and Co-ordinating Agency — which runs the ASTII initiative — said African governments should build research capacity within the continent so that her people can collect and analyse data to help them (governments) develop sound policies.

SPECIFIC FINDINGS

She pointed out: "The survey and the subsequent findings have a significant role to play in the social and economic transformation of Africa. It is indeed a substantial step in the effort to develop this continent."

The report lays bare how lack of funds and expertise bedevils STI, research and development activities and innovation.

It is reported that these challenges also affect the use of statistical methods in the analysis of a body of literature to reveal the historical development of subject fields and patterns of authorship, and publication.

The study also found out that Africa’s share of global science continues to decrease.

The researchers, therefore, recommend that for the continent to be become more competitive in future, Africa requires greater investment in human development, strengthening of scientific institutions and equipment, as well as setting aside more funds for science and scientific research.

Without giving specific figures, the researchers also found that STI are dominated by academics from leading universities.

Furthermore, it was evident there has been a shift in research focus from agricultural science to medicine since the 1990s.

The survey also found that in Africa, innovation is pervasive in the private sector and that instead of emerging from ideas developed in public research institutions and universities, it is driven by clients’ and customers’ ideas.

This includes collaboration, as well as acquisition of new machinery and equipment.

"In Africa, the main barriers to innovation are costs, domination by established enterprises, lack of information on technologies and markets and lack of qualified staff," the report says.

Out of the 19 economies sampled in the study, only Malawi, Uganda and South Africa had more than one per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development, thus meeting the target set by the African Union (AU) in 2006.

Women participation

Indeed, ten of the countries surveyed spent less than 0.5 per cent of their GDP on research and development activities.

It was also found that the participation of women in research and development is high only in a few countries, like Tanzania and South Africa, which have over 40 per cent. In Mozambique and Uganda, slightly more than 35 per cent of all involved R&D were women.

The ASTII data will be stored by the African Observatory for Science, Technology and Innovation, in Equatorial Guinea.