Mauritius maintains its position as a leading magnet for Innovation in Africa

According to the 2022 Global Innovation Index (GII), Mauritius retains its first position in Sub-Saharan Africa and secures the 45th position globally by gaining a noteworthy 7 places.

Mauritius is followed by South Africa (61st), Botswana (86th), Kenya (88th), Ghana (95th), Namibia (96th) and Senegal (99th). Mauritius ranks highest within the region in Institutions (22nd), Infrastructure (70th), Market sophistication (16th), and Creative outputs (31st). It leads worldwide in Venture capital deals (1st), and performs notably well in Trademarks (15th), ICT services imports (20th) and New businesses (20th).

The GII evaluates the innovation performance of 132 economies highlighting their innovation strengths and areas for improvement and the ranking is based on performance across seven pillars namely Institution, Human capital and research, Infrastructure, Market sophistication, Business sophistication, Knowledge and technology outputs and Creative outputs. The index tracks the most recent global innovation trends against the background of an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, slowing productivity growth and other evolving challenges.

The 2022 GII interestingly shows that investments thrived in innovation during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and boomed in 2021.Investments in global R& D in 2020 grew to a rate of 3.3% despite the pandemic induced economic downturn avoiding a fall as with in previous recessions. Top corporate R& D firms spenders are the most innovative firms worldwide. They have increased R&D expenditures by nearly 10% in 2021 which is higher than pre-pandemic growth. This increase was primarily driven by three sectors, namely Information Technology & Software, Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology and Construction and Industrial Metals. Sectors which have suffered in 2020.

Demand for intellectual property including trademarks, patents and designs grew during the global pandemic in both 2020 and 2021. The biggest boom was recorded in venture capital (VC), growing by nearly 50% in 2021 reaching nearly 20, 000 transactions. VC is increasingly global with deals in Latin America and the Caribbean doubling and activities in Africa nearly up 100%. These two regions witnessed the strongest VC growth.

Switzerland for the 12th year in a row ranks first in 2022 followed by the United States (2nd), Sweden (3rd), United Kingdom (4th), the Netherlands (5th). China edges towards the top 10 and is ranked 11th and remains the only middle-income economy in the GII top 30. Turkey and India enter the top 40 for the first time, at 37th and 40th respectively. The geography of innovation is continuing to shift towards Asia with two Asian economies in the Top 10, namely North Korea in the 6th position and Singapore rising to the 7th place.

The report was released in 2022 by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a United Nations agency in collaboration with Cornell University in the United States and INSEAD, the European Institute of Business Administration.