There is Hope in African R&D

The forecast for science in Africa has brightened over the past decade. After enduring civil wars and economic crises, many countries have entered a period of rapid growth and leaders are starting to see science and technology as the keys to progress. In 2006, members of the African Union endorsed
a target for each nation to spend 1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development (R&D). And at a summit the following year, heads of state in Africa declared 2007 the year for scientific innovation. there is a ray of hope being seen in the Africa R&D sector.

Despite the many problems confronting scientists in sub-Saharan Africa, there are signs that they are starting to build momentum. After a period of relatively slow growth during the 1990s and early 2000s, the output of
publications is now rising rapidly. In 1996, subSaharan researchers produced roughly 0.8% of the total papers in the Scopus database. By 2009, that fraction had reached about 1%.Part of this trend can be explained by increasing collaborations among researchers in Africa and the developed world. KEMRI in
Kenya, for example, has seen its output grow by 45% in the last 5 years, with an increasing number of papers coauthored by researchers at institutions such as the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Other African institutes
are seeing growth in collaborations with rapidly developing countries such as China  and Brazil. Expanding access to the Internet across sub-Saharan Africa is one factor behind these intercontinental ties. But they
also reflect the growing ambitions of Africa’s own researchers.