In May 2019 reporting on a government study said Ethiopia’s research and development spending was only about 0.27 percent of GDP, far below the African Union’s long-stated goal of at least 1 percent.
The Ethiopian Institute of Technology and Innovation work said roughly 65 percent of that R&D money still came from government, with the rest from non-government actors. The Ministry of Innovation and Technology added that the share of GDP had been falling as the overall economy grew and as universities shifted from research toward more practical teaching.
UNESCO statistics cited in the same cluster noted that only a few sub-Saharan countries, such as South Africa, Kenya, and Senegal, were then near the 1 percent line.
Kept as science and tech policy archive, the 0.27 percent figure is a dated baseline for later debates about innovation, universities, and industrial catch-up.
Sources: Ghana Business News