BY TAONGA SABOLA:
Malawi has inched up by one position on the 2018 Global Innovation Index (GII) from 115 last year to 114 out of 126 global economies this year.
The GII rankings are published annually by Cornell University, Insead and World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo).
The rankings come at a time Malawi has recorded a number of innovations in ICT and banking in recent months.
Malawi has been given a score of 50.4 in institutions; 11.3 on human capital and research; 26.6 on business sophistication; 14.9 on knowledge and technology outputs; 26.3 in infrastructure; 37.6 in market sophistication and 16.6 in creative outputs.
Malawi is ranked ahead of neighbours, Mozambique and Zambia, at 115 and 120, respectively, but is behind Tanzania which is ranked at position 90.
The GII aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation by providing a rich database of detailed metrics for 126 economies, which represent 90.8 percent of the world’s population and 96.3 percent of global Gross Domestic Product.
Now in its 11th edition, by collecting innovation metrics, the GII assists countries to better assess their innovation performance; and by identifying strengths and challenges, it helps empower countries to improve their innovation policies by leveraging strengths and overcoming challenges.
By pursuing these two objectives, the GII has helped to shape innovation measurement and policy agenda of the countries it analyses.
The GII 2018, under the theme ‘Energising the World with Innovation’, is dedicated to the subject of energy innovation.
The GII 2018 analyses the energy innovation landscape of the next decade and identifies possible breakthroughs in fields such as energy production, storage, distribution, and consumption.