The government of Kenya is putting in place the institutional and legal frameworks required to establish a National Research Fund, the country’s cabinet secretary of the ministry of education, science and technology has said.
Jacob Kaimenyi was speaking in Nairobi during a stakeholders’ workshop to discuss the operationalisation of the NRF on 17 March. The meeting drew participants from financial and research institutions, philanthropic organisations and academia.
“The current investments in research and development remain low. We intend to increase research funding to 2 per cent of gross domestic product through partnership with key stakeholders, including the private sector and foundations,” said Kaimenyi.
He noted that economic sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, education, infrastructure and health would benefit from the new national research kitty.
The Kenyan government has been allocating 345 million Kenyan shillings (US$4m) annually to finance research and innovations since 2008. The NRF established under the Science and Technology Innovation Act, 2013, intends to increase this amount.
Kenya’s current allocation for research amounts to 0.5 per cent of the country’s GDP, an amount that many Kenyan academics think is negligible compared to the country’s research needs and potential.
Kaimenyi said an estimated 1,000 research projects have benefitted from state funding.
“It is anticipated that an NRF will enable the country to harness scientific and technical know-how to address current and emerging challenges to sustainable development,” he said.
Colleta Suda, principal secretary of state for the department of science and technology, said in a statement read on her behalf by Isaiah Nyaribo, a senior department secretary, that public-private partnerships would be essential to raise adequate resources to support science, technology and innovation.
Kenya is a signatory to the African Union protocol that obliges member states to commit 1 per cent of their GDP to support scientific research.
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