Education is part of the enabling infrastructure required for jobs, social development, and future economic growth. Unfortunately, low- and middle-income countries face an urgent skills crisis with nearly 70% of children unable to read a simple text by age 10. In response, governments, households, and donors spend more than $5.8 trillion annually on financing education systems, with a strong focus on early learning.
While focusing on the foundations makes sense, developing countries allocate less than 20% of their government education budgets to tertiary education, and less than 2% of their GDP to research and development (R&D). This limits their capacity for advanced research and innovation. By contrast, high-income countries spend more than 3% of their much larger GDP on R&D alone, in addition to private contributions and far larger tertiary education budgets.
While new technologies are often developed by richer nations, developing countries face a unique set of local challenges that these solutions may not be designed to address
Some argue that the developing world’s limited higher education and R&D sector should not be alarming – while important, innovative technologies can simply be “imported” from high-income countries to their lower-income counterparts.
This argument misses a simple point: local problems often demand local solutions. The lion’s share of R&D happens in higher-income countries, but these technologies are largely developed for those high-income contexts. If the number one cause of death in France is cancer, medical research will prioritize new cancer treatments. If most farmers grow wheat and maize in the United States given its soil and climate conditions, scientists will develop new varieties for those crops. In high-income countries, where malaria is rare, armyworms do not threaten agriculture, and sweet potatoes are not central to the diet, there is little incentive to study these foreign topics.
Indeed, new research shows that technologies developed overseas are often “inappropriate” for domestic markets. For example, crop pests and pathogens pose major threats to agricultural productivity worldwide. While each pest or pathogen found in the US shows up in roughly 57 agricultural patents on average, those found outside the US appear in only 11. Because of this American bias, developing countries struggle to obtain technologies tailored to combatting the pests and pathogens they actually face. The authors estimate that this innovation “mismatch” reduces global agricultural productivity by more than 40% and increases productivity gap between high- and low-income nations by 15%.
Examples across agriculture, health, and infrastructure demonstrate the power of using local skills and R&D to address local challenges
Initiatives to bolster advanced skills and R&D in developing countries, such as the Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence (ACE) financed by the World Bank, have shown great promise in closing this innovation gap. Since 2014, the program has partnered with 20 governments and more than 50 higher education institutions across the African continent to support faculty, training, and R&D.
The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana exemplifies this approach. Joining the ACE program in 2014, WACCI has achieved remarkable outcomes through R&D and training programs: its faculty and graduates have released over 290 improved crop varieties across six countries, published over 280 articles in high-impact journals, and attracted over $60 million in external funding.
One example of WACCI’s impact comes from Burkina Faso, where vitamin A deficiency remains a serious public health issue for children whose diets depend on white-fleshed sweet potatoes lacking essential micronutrients. Farmers also face harsh growing conditions including poor soil fertility, heat stress, and widespread viral crop diseases. Dr. Koussao Somé, a WACCI graduate, developed a new variety of orange-fleshed sweet potato rich in vitamin A and adapted specifically to withstand local growing conditions and diseases. Today, it is widely cultivated across the country, serving as a key ingredient in locally produced foods.
The need for local research extends far beyond agriculture. Malaria kills over 600,000 people annually, mostly young children in West Africa, where the deadliest parasite continues to evolve resistance to existing drugs and vaccines. At an ACE center at the University of Ghana (West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens), researchers developed portable DNA sequencing technology to analyze finger-prick blood samples within 48 hours in what used to take months. This allows health teams to adapt treatment plans based on drug-resistance in near real time, reducing mortality risk.
Even challenges in infrastructure demand localized solutions. West African countries struggle to maintain road networks as traditional asphalt “grades” developed for American and European conditions deteriorate quickly under the region’s intense heat, rainfall, and traffic conditions. At an ACE center in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Transport Research and Education Centre), researchers developed asphalt grade prediction models optimized for West African road and environmental conditions, reducing maintenance costs and increasing longevity.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Across agriculture, health, infrastructure, and extending into sectors like renewable energy, water management, and digital technology, the ACE model demonstrates that local understanding breeds local solutions. As the global development community grapples with increasingly complex challenges, the lesson is clear: sustainable progress comes not only from transplanting solutions, but also from cultivating the minds and institutions capable of growing them from local soil.Addressing this gap will require a mix of strategies, from stronger government research allocations to regional collaborations and private sector partnerships. The question isn’t whether developing countries can afford to invest in higher education and R&D – it’s whether they can afford not to.
Source : World Bank
