A recently concluded meeting has highlighted strong multi-stakeholder partnerships as key for accelerating research-driven development in Africa.
The Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) held its Virtual Regional Meeting on 29-30 June 2021 to facilitate cross-learning, experience sharing, and networking among Science Granting Councils (SGCs) and other continental and global Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) actors. The meeting also discussed pathways for developing research and development (R&D) roadmaps that can influence national research agendas. Participants included representatives of selected African Science Granting Councils, the United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Energy and Strategy (BEIS), funding partners of the SGCI, and its implementing partners.
In his opening remarks, Tom Ogada, the Executive Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), noted the importance of R&D roadmaps in Africa. “It is an important framework that governments can use to inform resource allocation, research priorities, and support implementation of related policies,” Ogada emphasized.
Lucy Absolom, Head of R&D Strategy at BEIS, shared her experiences in developing the UK’s research and development roadmap. She highlighted the importance of getting the process right to ensure that the outcome is embraced by all key actors. Absolom emphasized that intentional engagement of multiple stakeholders from the onset is fundamental to the success of a viable R&D roadmap that can influence national research agendas and enhance development.
Lessons from Uganda, Burkina Faso, and Namibia demonstrated progress and challenges faced by African countries in developing R&D roadmaps. Burkina Faso has allocated a percentage of the revenues collected from its telecom and mining industries to R&D. Inoussa Zongo, Director General for Research and Innovation at Burkina Faso’s Development Funding Agency, emphasized that intentional resource allocation for R&D is critical to ensuring prioritization of national research agendas.
Namibia’s STI policy has a sharp focus on increasing and enhancing strategic partnerships to leverage more resources toward its R&D agenda. Vincent Nowaseb, General Manager for Innovation and Technology Development at Namibia’s National Commission on Research, Science, and Technology, provided an overview of the country’s STI policy, which is anchored on nine objectives that entrench the application of STI across various sectors.
Uganda has developed its national research agenda and a draft STI policy. These policies have enabled the government to commit to increasing its gross expenditure on science, encourage the private sector to invest in research and innovation for development, and work toward increasing the number of annual internationally registered patents from two currently to 50 by 2025. Uganda is also exploring the potential of indigenous knowledge systems to contribute to and enhance its R&D strategy.
The meeting highlighted the need for collaboration across sectors, early multistakeholder engagement, and contingency planning as important in developing a robust roadmap. Namibia, for example, embarked on the review of its STI policy in 2015 through a highly consultative process with ministries and agencies, non-governmental organizations, academia, and civil society organizations.
SGCs play a critical role in driving research and development, given their mandate of advising governments on STI-related strategies and shaping national research agendas. Strong SGCs contribute to effective R&D, hence the need to continue investing in strengthening them. IDRC’s Ellie Osir noted that over the last five years, the SGCI had made remarkable progress toward its objectives of supporting SGCs, organized around five thematic areas, including strengthening their ability to manage research; enhancing capacity for evidence-based policy and decision-making; supporting research management; promoting strategic communications and knowledge uptake; and advancing gender balance and inclusivity.
Advancing research and development requires strong linkages between the research agenda and the national development plan. The meeting enhanced the Councils’ knowledge on how to align their R&D agendas with national development plans and strengthen this linkage for STI in Africa.
The 2021 Virtual Regional Meeting was hosted by the SGCI in partnership with the Scinnovent Centre. The SGCI aims to strengthen the capacities of Science Granting Councils (SGCs) in sub-Saharan Africa to support research and evidence-based policies that will contribute to economic and social development.
The initiative is jointly funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the German Research Foundation (DFG).
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