Africa's innovations systems cannot create wealth

Judi W. Wakhungu writes in Africa Science News about the shortcomings that are leading to a dearth of innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa:

Institutional inefficiency is historical and in SSA these have been broadly into three systemic categories-institutional inertia, organsational ineffectiveness and institutional gaps. Institutional inertia is multi-faceted and does not necessarily mean that an organization is not changing.
Rather, it means that an organization may not be responding fast enough to keep abreast of changes in the local, national and global contexts.
Functional incoherence was designed into the structure from the beginning and the institutional forms have not been refined and adapted to the changing context.

She asks the question:

What is the relevance of the existing R&D institutions if they are not connected to the productive sectors? The lack of strong market coordination means that funding or inadequate funding exacerbating ineffectiveness.

In this video she discusses the transformative power of investment in science and technology: