keynote address 2 kaniki

Beyond access: the impact of Africa’s agriculture research outputs and literature

A keynote address at the Third IAALD African Chapter Conference

e-Agriculture for improved livelihoods and food security in Africa

21-23 May, 2012Johannesburg, South Africa

Andrew M. Kaniki, PhDExecutive Director: Knowledge Fields Development

Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (RISA)National Research Foundation

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Strategic Context:Towards the knowledge society/economy

• African Governments have set themselves the objective of transforming their countries and the continent into a knowledge society that competes effectively in a global system

• The agenda… to become a knowledge society is increasingly driven by Africans. The African Union and more specifically NEPAD are setting the agenda (Africa as a knowledge society: a reality check Int. Info & Lib Review. Britz et. al 2006)

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Knowledge Society Indicators:Towards the knowledge society/economy

• Qualitative measurement of the use of, and access to, modern ICTs;

• The number of scientists in a country;

• The amount spent on R&D as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) – Executive Council 8th Ordinary Session of AU 16-21 Jan, 2006, 1% of

GDP spend; – Maputo declaration 2003 directed AU member countries national

agricultural investment to at least 10%3

Knowledge Society Indicators:Towards the knowledge society/economy

• The ability to produce and export high technology;

• The number of patents filed in a country; and

• The number [and impact] of articles published in highly ranked [impact] scholarly journals.

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Why the knowledge economy?

Source: DA King, Nature 430 (2004) 311 (15 July 2004)

Sustainable wealthSustainable wealth

Why the Knowledge Economy

More than 50% of new wealth creation in the world’s largest economies is ascribed to knowledge based industries, where the major proportion of the workforce is employed in knowledge-based jobs and the major proportion of firms that innovate use technology to do so. The DST aims to lead a programme of interventions over the next ten years to drive the transformation of the South African economy to a knowledge economy.

Innovation towards a knowledge economy: The ten year plan for South Africa (2008-2018) pp. 4-5

Drivers of Economic Competitiveness

• Drivers of competitiveness:– Investing in human beings is the best way to enhance

productive capacities – profits and efficiencies (Riane Esler 2007 – The real wealth of nations)

• Economic studies indicate that even before the IT revolution as much as 85% of measured US growth per capita was due to technological change (US National Academy of Science)

1. Human Capital2. Technological change (Knowledge production, Innovation:

US study on Productivity Growth)

Impact of Africa’s agriculture research outputs and literature - Indicators

• Essential Science Indicators & Journal Citation Index (Thomson Reuters: Journal Citation Report)

• Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) (managed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) – http://www.asti.cgiar.org)

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http://www.asti.cgiar.org/

Thomas Reuters examples of productivity and impact measures

• Journal Impact Factor: Average number of times articles from a jnal published in past 2 yrs have been cited

• Impact Factor of 1.0: on average articles published one or two years ago have been cited at least once

• 5 year impact factor: average number of times articles from a journal published in past 5 yrs

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Big 8 Share of Agric R&D spending and staff in 2008

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Country % Share Spending %Share of Staff

Nigeria 23.2 17.0

South Africa 15.6 6.5

Kenya 9.8 8.4

Ghana 5.5 4.4

Uganda 5.0 2.2

Tanzania 4.4 5.6

Ethiopia 3.9 10.9

Sudan 3.0 8.4

Total 70.4 63.7

11 Yr Country Rankings in Ag ScienceAccording to Number of Citations per paper

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Ranking(outputs ranking

Country 98 Papers Citations Citations/ Paper

1 (36 Scotland 1 794 24 007 13.38

2 (29) Finland 2 087 25 822 12.37

6 (12) England 8 297 95 605 11.52

14 (1) USA 46 251 460 698 9.96

26 (73) Zimbabwe 258 2 128 8.25

33 (62) Morocco 357 2 681 7.51

38 (88) Cote d’IVoire 130 850 6.54

41 (37) S Africa 1 545 9 526 6.17

44 (80) Senegal 171 1 050 6.14


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46 (46) Kenya 865 5 034 5.38

55 (81) Burkina Faso 170 932 5.48

60 (72) Tanzania 268 1 344 5.01

63 (74) Algeria 251 1 230 4.9

64 (76) Uganda 234 1 142 4.88

69 (87) Malawi 133 616 4.63

70 (48) Tunisia 767 3 415 4.45

71 (90) Mali 129 570 4.42

73 (41) Egypt 1 299 5 393 4.15


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76 (66) Cameroon 324 1 329 4.1

78 (60) Ghana 381 1 547 4.06

79 (59) Ethiopia 392 1 564 3.99

81 (94) Botswana 92 365 3.97

83 (79) Sudan 178 698 3.92

84 (797) Benin 226 879 3.89

86 (93) Niger 107 392 3.66

94 (34) Nigeria 1 932 5 925 3.07

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Country Journal Title Impact Factor (IF)

5yr IF

Egypt Int. Jnal Photoenergy 1.345 1.363

Ethiopia Bulletin of the chemical Society 0.277 0.298

Kenya African Jnal of biotechnology 0.573 0.794

Libya Libya Jnal of Medicine 0.169 No data

Nigeria African Jnal of Agric Research 0.263 0.203

South Africa SA Jnal of Animal SciencesSA Jnal Botany

0.4161.106

0.7171.144

What can we say about this?

• A key input for development and innovation is research and literature;

• Research output and impactful literature;

• Access to literature cannot be over-emphasised and of course ICT provide great opportunity for access;

• Only about 1/3 of African countries have produced agriculture research

• Impact factor of top journals ½ that of the top journals in agriculture. 15

In ConclusionWhat does this mean/shoul we be doing?• Improve visibility and use of African Agric literature

(SciELO –SA Scientific Electronic Library Online);• Keep track on the performance of these literature and

provide feed back to decision makers and researchers;

• Facilitate the improvement of quality of agric research literature

• As African countries work towards investing 1% of GDP into R&D, what % goes into Agricultural R&D, what’s the return on investment?

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Enkosi, Thank you, Asante, Re a leboga, Siyabonga, Dankie,Enkosi, Thank you, Asante, Re a leboga, Siyabonga, Dankie,Merci, Zikomo Merci, Zikomo

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