UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT
n establish science and technology parks and business
incubators;
n help companies specializing in electronics to set
up business in their country and develop the use of
satellites and remote sensing for telecommunications,
environmental monitoring, climatology, meteorology, etc.;
n develop a national capacity to manufacture computer
hardware and design software;
n facilitate the spread of modern IT infrastructure to foster
teaching, training and research;
n incite the private sector to finance research and
technology through tax incentives and related measures;
n create networks between universities, research institutions
and industry to promote collaboration;
n foster clean, sustainable sources of energy and the
development of local construction materials;
n establish national and regional databases on R&D
activities.
Countries are also encouraged to work with the ECOWAS
Commission to improve data collection. Of the 13 countries
which participated in the first phase 5 of the African Science,
Technology and Innovation Indicators Initiative (ASTII), just
four from ECOWAS contributed to ASTII’s first collection of
R&D data for publication in the African Innovation Outlook
(2011): Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal (NPCA, 2011).
5. ASTII was launched in 2007 by the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD), in order to improve data collection and analysis on R&D.
ECOWAS was barely more visible in the second African
Innovation Outlook, with just six countries contributing R&D
data, out of 19 across the continent: Burkina Faso, Cabo
Verde, Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Togo (NPCA, 2014). Nigeria
was totally absent and only Ghana and Senegal provided a
full set of data for all four performance sectors, which is why
they alone feature in Figure 18.5.
Subregional training workshops were organized for countries
by ECOWAS in 2013 and 2014 on STI indicators and how to
draft research proposals.
ECOWAS has taken other steps recently to tackle the lack of
technological impact of the research sector:
n In 2012, the ministers in charge of research adopted
the ECOWAS Research Policy (ECORP) while meeting in
Cotonou;
n In 2011, ECOWAS created the West Africa Institute within a
public–private partnership (Box 18.3).
TRENDS IN EDUCATION
Efforts to generalize primary education are paying off
One of West Africa’s toughest challenges will be to educate
and train young people and develop a highly skilled labour
force, particularly in science and engineering. Illiteracy
remains a major hurdle to expanding science education: only
two out of three young people (62.7%) between the ages of
15 and 24 are literate, with the notable exception of Cabo
Verde (98.1%). The proportion of literates is as low as one
person in four in Niger (23.5%).
Box 18.3: The West Africa Institute
The West Africa Institute was established
in Praia (Cabo Verde) in 2010 to provide
the missing link between policy and
research in the regional integration
process. The institute is a service
provider, conducting research for
regional and national public institutions,
the private sector, civil society and the
media. The think tank also organizes
political and scientific dialogues
between policy-makers, regional
institutions and members of civil society.
There are ten research themes: the
historical and cultural bases of regional
integration; citizenship; governance;
regional security; economic challenges
to market integration in West Africa; new
ICTs; education; the problem of shared
resources (land, water, minerals, coastal
and maritime security); funding of NGOs in
West Africa; and migration.
The idea for the West Africa Institute
emerged from 15 research workshops
on the theme of regional integration
organized in the ECOWAS member states
by UNESCO’s Management of Social
Transformations programme.
In 2008, the Summit of Heads of State and
Government of ECOWAS in Ouagadougou
(Burkina Faso) unanimously endorsed the
idea to create the West Africa Institute.
In 2009, UNESCO’s General
Conference established the
West Africa Institute as one of its
category 2 institutes, which means
that it functions under the auspices
of UNESCO. A year later, the
Government of Cabo Verde passed
a law establishing the institute in
the capital.
The institute is the fruit of a public–
private partnership involving
ECOWAS, WAEMU, UNESCO, the
pan-African Ecobank and the
Government of Cabo Verde.
Source: westafricainstitute.org
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