Sierra Leone implementing its first National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy

The National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy is one outcome of a UNESCO project funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) that has been Strengthening Science, Technology and Innovation Systems for Sustainable Development in Africa since 2020.

The project aligns with both the UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers (2017) and the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021). Consequently, it includes specific objectives related to open science, gender equality, respect for scientific freedom and scientific responsibility, among other thematic areas.

The revival and restructuring of the National Science, Technology, and Innovation Council was a key objective of Sierra Leone’s first Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, as the Council has been tasked with developing an implementation plan for the policy. The rapidity with which the government has revived the council reflects the government’s determination to promote effective science governance at all levels. The policy includes plans to develop reliable funding strategies and related mechanisms to supplement annual national budgetary allocations to scientific research and innovation. One aim is to facilitate the transfer of new knowledge from ‘mind to market’ through the commercialization of research findings, in order to make the productive sectors of the economy more competitive, create job opportunities, expand industrialization and support the type of innovation that responds to local needs. The government is also prioritizing the optimization of natural resources.

According to the UNESCO Science Report (2021), Sierra Leone’s economy remains reliant on primary commodity exports, especially diamonds, iron ore, titanium ore, cocoa, coffee and wood. The country has been striving to diversify the economy and to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals. For instance, it has devised a comprehensive Decent Work Country Programme which has led to the development of a Labour Market Information System and National HIV/AIDS Workplace Policy. The government is also enforcing compliance on environmental protection, through monitoring and other strategies, such as via the integration of messages on climate change into school and university curricula.

In 2018, the government created the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation to pilot its Digitization Initiative for introducing e-government. The Directorate has since developed a prototype for an integrated geographical information system to map government services and infrastructure, in collaboration with other ministries.

In 2019, the government put in place a Business Incubator for African Women Entrepreneurship, with emphasis on agro-business. In parallel, the government has established a Women’s Development Fund to provide female traders and entrepreneurs with seed capital. A draft Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy was awaiting Cabinet approval in 2019. It fixes the target of achieving at least 30% female representation in governance structures. This percentage was endorsed by the Gender Empowerment Act of 16 August 2021, which also introduced provisions for equal pay and equal opportunity with regard to training, while stipulating that employers in the public and private sectors were to ensure that at least 30% of their employees were of each gender.

By the end of 2020, Sierra Leone had nine active tech hubs, according to data obtained from Briter Bridges for the UNESCO Science Report. All African countries have at least one tech hub and some have scores of them. The majority of African tech hubs are focusing on financial technologies (26%). Almost one in five tech hubs (19%) are active in big data and analytics, software development and the digital economy, followed by health-related innovation (18%), technologies for education (17%) and agriculture (14%). Some 6% of African tech hubs are focusing on clean tech.

Despite gaining independence over 60 years ago, Sierra Leone remains a low-income country with a GDP of just US$4.20 billion in 2021. The country experienced civil war in the 1990s and has since had to cope with the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and the Covid-19 pandemic, all of which have set back the country’s development by decades.

The chronic lack of investment in science and the absence of ties between science and society and the economy have relegated the country to the sidelines of today’s rapid scientific and technological progress. The government is determined to change this and recognizes that science and innovation will play a key role in achieving the goals of the African Union’s Agenda 2063: the Africa We Want, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals and other global agendas.

As in many other African countries, the health sector is a primary focus of research. Between 2011 and 2019, scientists from Sierra Leone more than quadrupled their output from 30 to 134 publications (Scopus database, excluding arts, social sciences and humanities), according to the UNESCO Science Report (2021). Between 2017 and 2019, 75% of the country’s scientific production concerned health research. At the height of the Ebola epidemic in 2016, scientists published no fewer than 87 articles in international journals on this virus alone (see graph), compared to just five in 2011.

One priority of the new policy is to revitalize education at all levels in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), in order to develop a critical mass of scientific personnel and promote a science culture in wider society. Other priorities include the promotion of open science.

The government is convinced of the value of universal access to education as a first step in the country’s modernization process. In 2022, as much as 22% of total government expenditure went to ensuring that all children could go to school.

According to the Annual School Census Report (2022), 3.1 million pupils were enrolled in school in 2021. The gross completion rate for senior secondary school increased from 49% in 2018 to 90% in 2021 and, over the same period, the gender gap for enrollment at this level shrank from 10% to 1%.

UNESCO’s Abuja Office has been working with the government since 2021 to develop a robust science system based on functional policies, open access to scientific knowledge and a critical mass of experts and technicians. The first step was to create a Project Consultative Group made up of experienced experts drawn from the government, academia and the private sector.

The Project Consultative Group worked with the UNESCO project team to map the primary stakeholders in science, technology and innovation and establish a preliminary, standardized benchmarking of the national science system in order to identify needs. This dual exercise pinpointed the system’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as particular challenges.

Based on the findings of the needs assessment, specialists from UNESCO’s Abuja Office trained about 40 science policy experts from Sierra Leone. They learned how to analyse gaps in policies and legal frameworks. They also learned how to use this information to identify thematic areas for the development of a national policy. One key element of the training concerned how to devise specific instruments to ensure that the national policy would be effective on the ground. Policy instruments range from study grants to raise the proportion of students studying science and engineering to research grants and mechanisms for technology transfer from the university sector to industry. Without this type of targeted instrument, a policy risks remaining a wish list. The number of policy instruments tends to be very high in sophisticated national innovation systems.

The approach taken in Sierra Leone is based on the concept developed by UNESCO’s Global Observatory of Science Policy Instruments (GO-SPIN), which maps the status of national and regional policies around the world and related instruments for implementation. It is this training which helped the experts identify thematic areas for the country’s first National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy.