Ife Ogunfuwa
Nigeria is among the low-middle income countries that are underperforming in the creation and utilisation of innovations, the 2019 Global Innovation Index released on Wednesday said.
The study said Africa’s largest economy performed below expectations compared with the level of economic development in the country.
Other underperformers in the low-middle income group are Ghana, Zambia, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.
The GII measures innovation performance in countries globally.
Nigeria moved up four places to 114 out of 129 economies ranked in the 2019 GII from the 118th position it attained in 2018.
The report said the top three economies in terms of innovation in sub-Saharan African are South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius.
Nigeria was missing among the innovation achievers in Africa, but five countries, which emerged in terms of innovation relative to their level of development, from the sub-Saharan Africa are Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, Malawi and Madagascar.
According to the Index, large emerging economies like Nigeria, China, India, Mexico, Viet Nam, Indonesia and South Africa recorded significant medical innovations as demand for improved health services rises.
“The innovation capacity in emerging markets is also growing, with increasing R&D, patents, and investment in these countries. Accordingly, pharmaceutical companies based in emerging economies have shown strong growth in recent years,” it added.
The report on innovation ranking stated that Nigeria performed poorly in the areas of political and operational stability, government effectiveness, ease of resolving insolvency, general infrastructure.
Other areas of weaknesses are domestic credit to private sector, Wikipedia edits, creative goods export, high-tech net exports, ISO 9001 quality certificates, patents by origin and university/industry research collaboration
The country, however, performed well in areas such as ease of getting credit, ease of protecting minority investors, microfinance gross loans as a percentage of GDP, intensity of local competition, domestic market scale, knowledge-intensive employment, intellectual property payments, citable documents and national feature films.
Globally, Switzerland retained its top position for the ninth consecutive year, with political stability and safety, ICT use, presence of global research and development firms, high market capitalisation, business sophistication and university/industrial research collaboration identified as some of its strengths.
Other countries in the top 10 innovation category are Sweden, the United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, Finland, Denmark and Israel.
The GII commended Rwanda and Kenya for making “a real difference in the global innovation landscape.”
“In an environment dominated by uncertainty, the role of policymakers remains central in ensuring that this does not weaken Research and Development investments. It will take time and persistence, sometimes over decades, for the above-mentioned innovation policy ambitions to trickle down and make a true dent in the global innovation landscape,” the report added.
GII urged policymakers to take an active interest in promoting local, frugal, and inclusive by innovation drawing on local riches, crafts, and skill sets.
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