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Experts Group Meeting on « Promoting R&D in North Africa” Rabat, Morocco, 15-17 July 2008. How to Strengthen Productive Capacities through R&D?. I. R&D in North Africa: Characteristics and Performance. Increased awareness of importance of R&D but structures relatively recent and diverse:
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Experts Group Meeting on « Promoting R&D in North Africa” Rabat, Morocco, 15-17 July 2008 How to Strengthen Productive Capacities through R&D? 1
Increased awareness of importance of R&D but structures relatively recent and diverse: Ministries, commissions, research centres, universities, fondations, specialized academias PNRI (Tunisia) CNRST (Algeria and Morocco) Academy of scientific research and technology (Morocco & Egypt) Different approaches to R&D but a search for better adequation with national development strategies Characteristics 3
What do the Indicators tell us? • Source : S&T database of the UNESCO Statistics Institute • Is there a critical mass of researchers in North Africa? • What is the level of performance of existing researchers? In which sectors are • they involved? • Is there a gender balance in R&D? • Based on our data, almost gender parity in Tunisia(43%), followed by • Algeria (33%) and Sudan (15.4%). 4
R&D Expenditures as % of GDP • Source: S&T database of the UNESCO Statistics Institute (2008). • Why is it that more diversified economies have higher ratio? • Does this investment effort reflect efficiency of R&D and of researchers? • Are expenditures in R&D oriented to priority sectors? • Is the level of investment enough, and what is the contribution of private sector? 5
Scientific Production Source: S&T database of the UNESCO Statistics Institute (2008) What does this say about visibility and quality of North African researchers in the world? 6
II. R&D Impact on Competitiveness of the Industrial Sector 8
Low Technological Content… Source: UNDP (2007/2008), Report on human development. Do the highest levels reflect research induced innovation or delocalization of high tech industries in NA? 9
Incubators, techno-poles, S&T technoparks (Morocco, Tunisia, Libya) Programme for promoting innovation Industrial competitiveness development funds Emergence of Venture Capital Schemes such as: FINALEP in Algeria: huge potential but still emerging MOUSSAHAMA in Morocco: first venture capital corporation SICARS in Tunisia : provides fiscal support to investors promoting new technologies But Positive Move Towards Innovation in the Industrial Sector 10
Absence of a critical mass of researchers Low quality of education and inadequacy between training and markets/national priorities: too many unemployed graduates and brain-drain High cost of research Low levels of funding (public as well as private) Lack of mechanims for follow-up and evaluation of research activities III. Constraints and Challenges 11
What are the Ingredients to do More and Better? How to ensure a research enabling environment? How to promote R&D in strategic sectors? How to involve a productive sector where 80% are SMEs? How to use regional integration to federate resources and achieve economies of scale? 12
Thank you Aissatou Gueye agueye@uneca.org 14