Harnessing the Power and Potential of Partnerships to Create Resilient Financing Models for African Science

By Dr Fulufhelo Nelwamondo and Dr Thandi Mgwebi

Funding and innovative resource use will form a crucial part of discussions when scientists, funders, think tanks, and policymakers in Africa gather in Botswana this week for high-level discussions on various science, technology, and innovation (STI) themes and engage with the global network of partners in academia, industry, civil society, government, and intergovernmental organisations.

The 2024 Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) in Sub-Saharan Africa Annual Forum and the Global Research Council (GRC) Sub-Saharan African Regional Meeting in Gaborone will, among others, discuss strengthening African national innovation ecosystems through institutions, policies and programming, and celebrate achievements and lessons learned on capacity strengthening of public funders in sub-Saharan Africa, while bringing together input from public funders of STI, scientific think tanks, researchers, research performing institutions, and other key STI stakeholders. This gathering which speaks to the power of partnerships and takes place within the context of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which lay out the framework for the development and enhancement of strong strategic partnerships in support of STI on the African continent.

The dominant discourse around the funding of science in Africa tends to focus on the limited contributions by African governments – many have not yet reached the African Union’s target of allocating at least 1% of GDP to R&D – the dominance of Global North funding; limited private sector investment; and all the attendant concerns associated with that. What we hear much less about are the various homegrown funding organisations, such as public funders of science, and how, under such conditions of precarity and uncertainty, they innovate around the development of resilient and sustainable models for funding science is more urgent than ever.

In Africa, these organisations vary greatly in size and capacity—from a one-person operation within a ministry of science to fully-fledged organisations. Regardless of their size and capacity, these organisations are evidently playing critical roles in their science systems.

They have proximity to government and thus have developed deep understanding of both their science and government/policy-making systems and most are involved in working with government to set national science priorities, providing business intelligence on how to organise national systems of innovation. They help to fund postgraduate students, build research infrastructure, and fund research in an informed and context specific manner.

For the last nine years, the NRF and its sister public funders of research have made significant strides to build and sustain funding partnerships through the Science Granting Councils Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa (SGCI). Launched in 2015, the SGCI has strengthened the capacities of Science Granting Councils (SGCs) in sub-Saharan Africa to support research and evidence-based policies that will contribute to economic and social development.

The Initiative is a multilateral alliance where 17 countries (Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) on the continent have partnered with six initiative funders: United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO); Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC); the NRF; the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad); and the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Our collective efforts have advanced an internationally competitive knowledge enterprise with a focus on seven thematic areas, all geared towards organisational development, a feat that should inspire pride and a sense of accomplishment among the African science community. Together, we have funded national, bilateral, triangular and multilateral research programmes that seek to contribute to knowledge, human capital development, and solutions to Africa’s pressing challenges. We have shared experiences, expanded our capacities, and connected the dots that enhance our ability to disburse funds into the research ecosystem in an informed manner. We have expanded our capabilities to contribute to the promotion of the status and equality of women in research. We have collectively produced scholarly work that documents how public funders of research in Africa function and are positioned. Together, we have built a shared understanding of what it takes to leverage the scientific and political proximity that results from our existence to contribute to the financial resilience of Africa’s research ecosystem.

Through the SGCI, as public funders of research, we are gaining greater visibility – in our countries, on the continent and, increasingly, in the global science arena. We are positioning ourselves as partners of choice who interface with other science bodies, policymakers and communities across the continent and beyond.

The NRF has taken the lead in harnessing its partnerships with both its Global North funding partners and sister African science granting councils inspired by the SGCI to fund long-term strategic investments that are linked to the continent’s development agenda (Agenda 2063). A prime example of this is the O.R. Tambo Africa Research Chairs Initiative (ORTARChI), which is based on a distributed funding model where all partners, including the host institutions, contribute to the funding of the programme.

Drawing inspiration from the ORTARChI model, the NRF leverages existing arrangements embedded in bilateral partnerships to bring more public funders of research on the continent into triangular and multilateral partnerships. They have included the Africa-Japan Collaborative Research (AJ-CORE) on Environmental Science and the Long-term Europe – Africa WEF-Nexus Multilateral Research Programme (LEAWEF). Together, the NRF and its sister agencies leverage funding from their governments by competing on open calls from Global North partners, and through South-South collaborations. More recently, this has included the Belmont Forum Africa Regional Call.

In doing so, African public funders of researchers increasingly position themselves as partners of choice who are willing, able and available to partner with, and provide an interface for, science bodies, policymakers and communities on the continent and beyond. They are partners of choice because they can manage and disburse funds and offer insights and entryways into the inner workings of their national science systems.

These partnerships align with the broader desire for African public funders of research to increase the collective voice of African science on the global science stage, contribute to setting the African science agenda and influencing the global science agenda.

These efforts of African public funders of research will continue to be bolstered by expansion of partnerships amongst African governments, the private sector, academia, think tanks, other funding partners, and intergovernmental organisations to fund science for impactful outcomes as mandated by the AU and in line with the SDGs. This cannot be overemphasised since global science is being called on increasingly to address the significant economic, environmental, geopolitical, and technological crises of the twenty-first century. © Higher Education Media

Dr Fulufhelo Nelwamondo and Dr Thandi Mgwebi serve at the National Research Foundation, South Africa as the Chief Executive Officer and Group Executive, Business Advancement respectively.