At its first and second sessions, the Africa Regional Forum adopted several recommendations and key messages to enable member States to leverage science, technology and innovation to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. The key messages of the first session included: the inadequacy of hard and soft science, technology and innovation infrastructure; inadequate investment by African countries in science, technology and innovation; the importance of harnessing the innovative spirit of African youth; the need to develop relevant and realistic science, technology and innovation policies and strategies; and the essential need to promote intra-African collaboration in science, technology and innovation. At its second session, the Forum called on countries: to build capacity in the basic sciences and engineering; significantly to scale up investments in research and development; to align the critical skills at country level to effectively respond to a future increasingly driven by science, technology and innovation; to establish innovation hubs, incubators and common equipment centres; to develop a strategy that co-implemented the fourth industrial revolution, while taking advantage of established technologies in order to catch up and meet the aspirations of the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 of the African Union; to strengthen collaboration and partnerships at a continental and regional level; to draw lessons from the experiences of other regions to make significant inclusive and sustainable development gains; to adopt and promote renewable energy technologies; and to redesign the curricula of higher education to produce goods and services. Further details may be found in the reports of the first and second sessions of the Forum, in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
