Ghana Business News
By Pamela Ofori-Boateng
Morocco is the leader in Capacity Building in Africa in the area of Science,Technology and Innovation (STI), for the year 2016, according to the latest Africa Capacity Report (ACR), 2017.
The report released by the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), surveyed 44 African countries, measured and empirically assessed capacity against the development agenda in African countries.
The results for the African Capacity Building Index (ACI), were generally satisfactory as the ACI value ranged from 71.6 (Morocco) to 33.1 (Central African Republic), it said.
The ACR, noted that more efforts will be required for countries to move into the Very High Bracket in the index since no country reached the Very High extremes of capacity for the year under review.
Majority of the countries, the report pointed out have a medium capacity as out of the 44 countries surveyed, most (74 per cent) fell within the medium bracket, 20.5 per cent were in the High bracket, and 4.5 per cent were in the low bracket, it noted.
The report further says the best performance was in gender equality and social inclusion, for which there were no countries in the Low or Very Low brackets.
The indicators according to the report, depicts that Africa is making gradual process in developing its capacity for STI, despite the numerous challenges confronting it.
Adding to that, African countries have a long way to go in improving the outcome of capacity development, given that capacity-needs assessments are not the priority for most of them.
The report identified brain drain or mass migration of African skilled scientists and other experts as one of the factors impeding the development of STI in Africa.
ACBF plays a highly relevant role as it is well positioned to make an important difference through funding, interventions and technical assistance for capacity building projects and programmes to meet the needs of African member countries and non-state actors.
The ACR 2017 focuses on building capacity for STI in Africa. It also focuses on the capacity building imperatives for STI to accelerate Africa’s transformation
By Pamela Ofori-Boateng
