Nigeria Lags in Innovation -GII 2019

• Nigeria Lags in Innovation -GII 2019

The 2019 Global Innovation Index (GII) released on Wednesday pointed to slow growth of innovation in Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria.

The index showed Nigeria’s economy performed below expectations when compared with the level of economic growth.

As one of the biggest low-middle income economies that are underperforming in innovation or failed to use innovation to drive growth in 2019, Nigeria was ranked 114.

This was four positions higher than 118th position recorded in 2018 out of the total 129 economies ranked.

In Africa, South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius leads in innovation, while the level of innovations in Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, Malawi and Madagascar are relative to their level of developments, Nigeria’s innovation is below economic development.

“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,” GII read in part.

The 2019 GII noted that Nigeria performed poorly in government effectiveness, ease of resolving insolvency, general infrastructure and operational stability.

But performed better in the areas 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.

“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.