Publications /
Policy Paper

Back
Innovation in Africa: Evidence and Implications for Growth and the Transition to High-Income Status
Authors
Rishita Mehra
June 24, 2022

For today’s middle-income countries in Africa, innovation is essential to sustain growth and promote the transition to high-income status. This paper begins by providing an in-depth review of the region’s innovation performance during the last three decades. A distinction is made between residents and non-residents, and outcomes at different income levels. Using cross-country regressions, we then study the determinants of innovation and assess the impact of innovation on growth in the region. The analysis shows that the broadband penetration rate (which facilitates the development of knowledge networks) is a highly significant determinant of innovation. In addition, among the three types of intellectual property—patents, trademarks, and industrial design applications—only the last has a positive and significant impact on growth. Based on this analysis, and the broader literature on middle-income traps, we make policy recommendations to promote innovation in terms of both national strategies (with respect, in particular, to protecting intellectual property rights) and regional strategies, with an emphasis on the role of multilateral institutions.

RELATED CONTENT

  • June 17, 2021
    Africafé reviens ce jeudi 17 juin à 17h30 avec un nouvel épisode. Présenté par Youssef Tobi, spécialiste en relations internationales, Africafé décrypte l'actualité des organisations africaines et du continent avec des experts africains. Dans cet épisode, Youssef El Jai donne une vision...
  • June 4, 2021
    The Native Indians in Guyana are among the country’s poorest populations. The RE NEW TT project wished to address one of the major problems the country’s Native Indian community is dealing with: the lack of access to energy. RE NEW TT installed a PV solar system at the sole indigenous p...
  • May 20, 2021
    Le Policy Center lance une nouvelle émission. Africafé, le nouveau rendez-vous bimensuel présenté par Youssef Tobi, spécialiste en relations internationales, décryptera l'actualité des organisations africaines et du continent avec des experts africains. Pour ce deuxième épisode, Larabi ...
  • May 6, 2021
    The Policy Center for the New South recently partnered with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on a pair of reports exploring the theme of technology and its impact on Africa’s political and economic future. In its report, The Impact of New Technologies on Employment and the Workforce...
  • April 26, 2021
    La Tunisie a fêté récemment le 10ème anniversaire de la révolution qui a mis fin à l’ancien régime bénalien et défini les principes de la IIème République. Ayant pour principales doléances la croissance économique et la justice sociale, la révolution tunisienne était exclusivement sociale. Or, l’appropriation de la révolution par l’Assemblée nationale constituante (ANC) et le quartet du dialogue national qui ont privilégié le chantier des réformes démocratiques au détriment des réfo ...
  • April 13, 2021
    Technologies and Big Data in Shaping African Public Services: Towards Efficient Digital Solutions for Africa Social Good Can technology and digitalization improve and enhance the value we get from public services? Data can change the experience that individuals get from a public service...
  • Authors
    March 24, 2021
    This report is part of a partnership between the Policy Center for the New South and the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.   New technologies, such as automation, artificial intelligence and industrial robots, are often seen as a real danger for existing jobs and also for future job-creation prospects. There is a perception that they will make work redundant and lead to massive job destruction. However, others believe that automation, like previous technological waves , will incre ...
  • Authors
    Fernando S. Perobelli
    Inácio F. Araújo
    Tomaz P. Dentinho
    March 16, 2021
    Angola’s prospects for reconstruction and development of its poor connectivity infrastructure are heavily dependent upon the export performance of its oil sector. Using an interregional inputoutput table for Angola, we estimate comprehensive measures of trade in value added revealing different hierarchies of interregional and international trade integration, with implications for regional inequality in the country. By encompassing the subnational perspective in the case study of an ...
  • February 24, 2021
    L'intégration régionale en Afrique est considérée comme une priorité par de nombreux responsables politiques et acteurs économiques du continent. Avec la signature de l'accord portant création de la ZLECAf par l'ensemble des pays africains, le défi consiste désormais à mettre en place un marché continental pour les biens et les services et à jeter les bases d'une union douanière continentale. Nombreux sont ceux qui, sur le continent, considèrent la ZLECAf comme un plan d'investissem ...