Africa's plan of action for science and technology and indicators: South African experience

The African Union (AU) Commission and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) have set out a Consolidated Science and Technology Plan of Action (AMCOST, 2005) to promote socio-economic transformation. Monitoring and evaluation of that Plan is central to its success. To that end this paper deals with the problem of generating applicable science and technology indicators based on South African experience. The starting point is a brief discourse on South Africa's innovation policy followed by discussion of the importance of indicators, after which we move to problematizing the conduct of internationally comparable surveys of research and development (R&D) and innovation activity in emerging economies. Suggestions are offered regarding ways of controlling for estimation especially as registers are often incomplete. The paper concludes with brief comment on the prospects for the unfolding African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators process.