Abstract
This chapter discusses the level of readiness of innovation systems of sub-Saharan African economies for the 4IR. The readiness here refers to at least four dimensions or pre-requirements of the 4IR: the (digital) infrastructure, the education and skills, the governance and demand readiness and the research and innovation potential. Besides many structural and investment deficiencies, local business ecosystems are rather hostile for the growth and scale-up of micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs). Moreover, obstacles or barriers to technology diffusion and adoption undermine MSMEs’ innovation and creative capabilities. Use cases and applications of emerging technologies are spreading across the continent, albeit sparsely. In the last decade, African and international initiatives have opened genuine windows of opportunities for the sub-Saharan African region to reap the benefits of the 4IR.
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Notes
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- 2.
See thematic explanations and survey outputs at https://www.netcraft.com/internet-data-mining/ssl-survey/.
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- 4.
See also estimates of the share of households with a computer at home from 2005 to 2019 at https://www.statista.com/statistics/748549/africa-households-with-computer/.
- 5.
See also R&D data release for 2018 at: https://uis.unesco.org/en/news/rd-data-release.
- 6.
See additional thematic reports on Africa capital markets at https://www.lseg.com/resources/lseg-africa-advisory-group.
- 7.
See AfDB (2019) for a synthesis report; all individual case studies are available at https://4irpotential.africa/ (Access May 2020). The report was prepared by the joint venture composed of the consulting firms Technopolis Group, Research ICT Africa and Tambourine Innovation Ventures under overall coordination of Thierno Mountaga Diarra, Principal IT Solution Architect at the AfDB.
AfDB’s High 5s Agenda builds upon the Ten Year Strategy (TYS) for 2013–2022, which supports the achievement of inclusive growth and the transition to green growth through five operational priorities: infrastructure development, regional economic integration, private sector development, governance and accountability, and skills and technology. See the details of each priority area at: https://www.afdb.org/en/high5s.
- 8.
See the programmes and projects of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Science and Technology at https://scienceandtech.gov.ng/programmes/.
- 9.
More information is available at https://nef.org/.
- 10.
In 2017, Little Cabs, a car sharing company run by SAFARICOM saw explosive growth, hiring 2,300 drivers and gaining 90,000 active accounts in its first five months.
Rwanda has developed a strategy to harness energy from the few green energy resources. The strategy is deployed in partnership with a private company with the objective to set up a methane gas plant with a capacity of 56 MW (estimated costs of $200 million) with the government providing the required infrastructure to connect the new plant to the national grid. This is in addition to other projects such as Hakan Peat Power plant, and Rusumo hydropower plant under construction with a capacity of 80 MW to be shared between Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania.
In Burkina Faso, SMEs have developed agro-ecological projects where traditional skills and new methods make it possible to reuse production residues to make improved compost or treat compost. See NEF reference at https://nexteinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/SC-RW-OPS-03-02-2020-RFQ-WRITTEN-TRANSLATION.pdf.
- 11.
Same link as right above.
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World Development Indicators, World Bank Group: https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators
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Dosso, M., Nwankwo, C.I., Travaly, Y. (2021). The Readiness of Innovation Systems for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) in Sub-Saharan Africa. In: Daniels, C., Dosso, M., Amadi-Echendu, J. (eds) Entrepreneurship, Technology Commercialisation, and Innovation Policy in Africa. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58240-1_2
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