1. Building Africa’s Science and Technology Capacity for Economic Growth
Proposed continental initiative to enhance the role of STI in Africa’s economic growth
Emmanuel Okalany
Technical Specialist – Development and Partnerships
21st -March-2019

2. Some drivers of knowledge based economic growth
Accelerated, enhanced and sustainable contribution will be possible through Science, Technology and Innovation
Economic growth
Expanding capital stalk
Increasing the active labour supply
Extracting and selling natural resources
Improving factor productivity
Driving innovation and enterprise

3. Some challenges in building the required STI capacity to support Agenda 2063
Lack of implementation capacity. Most African countries have a strategy for the promotion of STI but are poorly implemented
Disjoint between the outputs of the African higher education institutions and Africa’s development vision/Agenda.
Inactive role of the private sector – Government institutions are major players
Brain drain or mass migration of African skilled scientists and other experts
Excessive reliance of African countries on external funding for research and development (R&D) drives continued poor investment in STI capacity building
Higher cost of education in the sciences and engineering - the high costs of science and engineering training excludes talented but disadvantaged students.
(UNESCO 2015 Science Report and ACR 2017)

4. Africa’s Science, Technology and Innovation Capacity (ACBF-ACR – 2017)

5. Annual Targets until 2063 (ACR, 2017)
Estimates of Critical Technical Skills to be produced each year until the end of the first ten-year implementation plan for Agenda 2063
400,000 medical doctors and specialists
300,000 engineers
19,000 geologists
8,000 agriculturalists

6. The Building Africa’s Science and Technology Capacity for Economic Growth (BASTIC) Initiative
Why the BASTIC Initiative
Inspired by the aspirations of Agenda 2063 and Science, Technology and Innovation (STISA 2024) and AUC-C10 declaration and Action Plan
Human, institutional and policy gaps in African STI revealed in ACR 2017 and UNESCO Science Report
Declaration of the African Ministers of Higher Education, Science and Technology (Cape Town, 2016) – call for the BASTIC initiative
Call for institutional and human capacity development by the Cairo declaration of the 3rd STI Forum, Cairo, Egypt
Consultation with Governments of Uganda, Sudan, Senegal, and Mozambique

7. Objectives of the BASTIC Initiative
Overall objective:
Develop relevant STI capacity for deployment for deployment across sectors in African countries
Specific objectives
Establish Regional Centres of Leadership in STI across African
Support regionally coordinated capacity-building activities to increase collaboration in higher education and STI and enhance inter-cultural and linguistic cooperation among institutions in African countries
Establish a regional coordinating and facilitating unit to support the programme implementation and management

8. Programme approach
Focus in building capacity of individuals, institutions and national STI systems for today and tomorrow
Harnessing the diversity in Africa (language, culture, educational and research systems, leadership structures) across the continent
Engagement of national governments of participating countries
Increasing the pool of women scientists
Inclusion of disadvantaged students such as refugees, disabled students
Phased implementation of 5 years, first phase on agriculture and environment

9. Regional Centres of Leadership in STI and Agri-food systems
Building model institutional architecture, infrastructure and STI leadership
Technologies and innovations
Partnerships among HEIs and with private sector, policy and other research institutions
Teaching and research facilities at universities
Masters and PhD as future STI leaders
Programme approach
Strengthened STI capacity in African countries accelerating attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa Agenda 2063
Coordination and Facilitation mechanism
Coordinating and providing implementation oversight
Undertaking M&E, fiduciary and safeguards
Hosting STI data hub
Supporting networking and knowledge sharing
Intra continental capacity-building cooperation activities
Regional Academic Mobility (RAM) for students and staff in agriculture, ICT, Science Education, engineering, science education, statistics and big data and policy
Staff capacities in African Universities by increasing the pool of PhD trained staff
Strengthening higher education and research institutional human inadequacies
Continental coverage including selected STI CoL and fragile states in Africa

10. Thematic areas of intervention
Science education (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology etc.)
Engineering and renewable energy
Agriculture and food systems
Statistics, data management and foresight
ICT for all sectors of development
Agriculture markets, trade and policies

11. Expected outputs for the first 5 years
Regional Centres of Leadership in STI and Agri-food systems
5 STI Centers of Leadership
5 Technology and Business Parks
50 Technologies and innovations
200 Masters
100 PhDs
Strengthened STI capacity in African countries accelerating attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa Agenda 2063
Coordination and Facilitation mechanism
A framework for coordination of STI capacity development in Africa
STI capacity data hup
5 Knowledge sharing and networking events
Intra continental capacity-building cooperation activities
10 Regional Academic Mobility Projects
300 Masters
200 PhD students
50 staff exchanges
5 Trainings on research leadership and institutional management
5 Trainings on resources mobilization

12. Partnerships and collaboration to implement
RUFORUM Seeks for partnerships, collaboration and suggestions to make the design and implementation of this programme a success

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