ROSA NL47 - Appendix 1: Public Spending on Agricultural Research in Sub-saharan Africa

This article is an appendix of ROSA Zoom: "The Role of Agricultural Research for the Development of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa" published in October 2013.

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For sub-Saharan African (SSA) countried, public spending on agricultural research stagnated between 1980 and 2000 at around $1,200 million. Since then, this spending has risen noticeably, reaching $1,745 million in 2008. Compared to agricultural GDP, however, the level of spending returned to the level of the 1980s with a ratio of 0.6% of agricultural GDP — lower than in Latin America (1.1%) and developed countries (3%) but higher than in Asia (0.4% to 0.5%, including China and India).

There are nevertheless considerable differences between countries in SSA. Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania have seen the largest increase whereas investments have dropped in countries in French-speaking West Africa. With the noteworthy exception of Nigeria and Ghana, the eight countries that have invested most heavily in R&D (research and development) are all located in East and Southern Africa[1] and account for 70% of public R&D spending and 64% of researchers in sub-Saharan Africa. The countries in West and Central Africa have much lower investment levels on average and are often more dependent on international finance.

[1] Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sudan spend more than $50 million per year (in PPP) and have more than 500 researchers FTE.