Innovation and Export in Africa
Innovation and Export in Africa
Innovation and Export in Africa
Innovation is the action or act of innovating, that is, modifying customs, models, legislations, products or processes. Renewal or create a novelty.
The concept of innovation is broad and can be used in all sectors, be it academic, business, environmental or economic. In this sense, the act of innovating means the need to create different ways or strategies, by the usual means, to achieve a certain goal. To innovate is to invent, whether ideas, processes, tools or services.
For Joseph Schumpeter (economist, 1883-1950), innovation is the process of creating the new and destroying what is becoming obsolete. It is the company’s ability to overcome perfect competition by establishing a temporary monopoly situation by creating a new market for its products.
Innovation and Export in Africa
And where do we find the connection between Innovation and Export?
The more innovative a country is, the more products and services it can make available in the global marketplace, overcoming perfect competition and creating a temporary monopoly situation. The theory of economic growth also has an export cause, because economic growth only occurs as a result of productivity or export.
There is no magic. Countries only also have Economic Growth if they increase their Productivity and/or increase their Exports. And this is achieved with Innovation.
In the image above we can see the 10 countries that most filed patent applications for innovative products and services in 2018, among which the first four are USA (56,142 patents), China (53,345 patents), Japan (49,702 patents) and Germany (19,883 patents).
It is no coincidence that these same 4 countries with the most patent applications for innovative products and services were also the 4 most exporting countries on the planet in 2018!
Just to record the disparity and comparison, these are the patent application quantities for innovative products and services in Africa, by WIPO – World Intellectual Properties Organization in 2018:
PCT patents applications in 2018
Africa
| (*) | Countries | Code | 2018 |
| 31 | South Africa | ZA | 275 |
| 73 | Algeria | DZ | 17 |
| 80 | Kenya | KE | 8 |
| 84 | Tunisia | TN | 7 |
| 91 | Sudan | SD | 6 |
| 97 | Mauritius | MU | 4 |
| 99 | Senegal | SN | 4 |
| 102 | Namibia | NA | 3 |
| 104 | Seychelles | SC | 2 |
| 106 | Nigeria | NG | 2 |
| 109 | Libya | LY | 2 |
| 110 | United Republic of Tanzania | TZ | 2 |
| 111 | Zambia | ZM | 2 |
| 114 | Zimbabwe | ZW | 1 |
| 117 | Cameroon | CM | 1 |
| 121 | Uganda | UG | 1 |
| 122 | Madagascar | MG | 1 |
| 125 | Democratic Republic of the Congo | CD | 1 |
| 126 | Niger | NE | 1 |
| 128 | Rwanda | RW | 1 |
| 135 | Côte d’Ivoire | CI | 0 |
| 138 | Burundi | BI | 0 |
| 139 | Ghana | GH | 0 |
| 142 | Gabon | GA | 0 |
| 143 | Botswana | BW | 0 |
| 144 | Angola | AO | 0 |
| 148 | Liberia | LR | 0 |
| 149 | Eswatini | SZ | 0 |
| 151 | Togo | TG | 0 |
| 152 | Benin | BJ | 0 |
| 154 | Congo | CG | 0 |
| 157 | Sierra Leone | SL | 0 |
| 160 | Equatorial Guinea | GQ | 0 |
| 162 | Mozambique | MZ | 0 |
| 163 | Chad | TD | 0 |
| 164 | Burkina Faso | BF | 0 |
| 165 | Eritrea | ER | 0 |
| 166 | Ethiopia | ET | 0 |
| 169 | Mali | ML | 0 |
| 171 | Malawi | MW | 0 |
(*) Ranking among all countries (174 countries)
Innovation and Export in Africa
It is important that the African countries have to work harder to generate Programs and Projects to improve Innovation – and consequently improve their Productivity and Exports.
(Alfredo Kleper Lavor, economist)
