The latest Innovation index released by Bloomberg has highlighted the shortfall in Africa’s over all ability to develop to catch up with the Europeans.
The Bloomberg Innovation Index ranks the world’s 60 most innovative countries using seven criteria including; research and development, expenditure as a percentage of GDP, productivity, patent activity, concentration of researchers (including postgraduate PhD students) engaged in Reasearch & Development per 1 million people, and concentration of high-tech companies.
On the latest Innovation index out of the 60 countries ranked, South Africa and Tunisia were ranked 48th and 43rd last year but dropped heavily to 51st and 52nd respectively.
Among 2019’s ranked economies, the biggest loser was Tunisia which fell out of the top 50.
ALSO READ: Israel jumps to 5th place in 2019 Bloomberg Index of Most Innovative Countries
According to Bloomberg, the 2019 ranking process began with more than 200 economies. Each was scored on a 0-100 scale based on seven equally weighted categories. Nations that didn’t report data for at least six categories were eliminated, trimming the total list to 95. Bloomberg publishes the top 60 economies.
Shockingly some countries in Africa such as Kenya Rwanda, Ghana amongst others which has being touted by the world bank as best places for business were all missing and that’s a clear indication that the number of Science and Engineering graduates who mostly lead the charge of innovation are either dwindling in numbers or their impact in the overall development is low.
Meanwhile, in a related development, Isreal placed 5th in the overall survey overtaking Sweden which was 2nd in 2018. They also overtook Singapore which was 3rd in 2018 and Japan, which came in 6th in 2018’s index. South Korea retained the global crown in the innovation index and the US climbed its way back to the 8th spot after falling out of the top 10 for the first time last year.
Israel was the only country to beat South Korea in the R&D intensity category, that is the R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP. This year’s top spot in research concentration (professionals engaged in R&D per population) went to Denmark.
Israel’s biggest jump was in patent activity, from the 19th spot last year, to 4th in the latest index, signaling significantly more patent filings. The country retained its 5th spot in high-tech density (the number of locally domiciled high-tech companies) for a second year. It also improved its tertiary education efficiency ranking, which measures the share of new science and engineering graduates in the labor force and those enrolled in post-secondary education program, from 41st last year to 36th this year.
