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Flow of foreign funds into science and technology

Scattered data on capital (development) expenditures indicate that, to an increasing extent, the major portion of the funds allocated to increasing the capacity of R&D institutes is coming from abroad. The percentages of total 'development' expenditures of R&D institutes financed by foreign bodies varies substantially from country to country: Uganda having negligible percentages till the 1990s and the highest since then; Tanzania substantial percentages over the last several years; and Kenya moderate percentages. For Ghana, percentages cannot be calculated, since the data on foreign donations are almost never identified: our guess is that Ghana's receipts are of the order of Kenya's (up to 1991), but less proportionately, than Tanzania's and Uganda's (see Table 7.9).

Moving on to total expenditures on advancing science and technology, we encounter percentages of foreign donations of substantial size, country by country. The figures are presented in Table 7.8; they reveal that Kenya and Tanzania received foreign donations sufficient to increase their expenditures on advancing science and technology by one-quarter to one-third prior to adopting Structural Adjustment Programmes, but subsequent to their adoption the increases have been by two-thirds to four-fifths. In the case of Uganda, the figures are even higher, but Uganda's figures include foreign loans destined for public budget support, especially Maherere University, as well as donations.

Table 7.7 Comparison of public expenditures on the advance of science and technology with total government expenditures for Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda 1982/3-1991/2 (millions units of the national currency, at constant prices of 1987)

Sources:
Expenditures of R&D Institutes: Table 7.4
Expenditures on Technical Education; Tables 3.19 (total, less public expenditures of CSIR); 4.17 (universities only); 5.19; and 7.1 (for Uganda, total less R&D Institutes for 1982/3-1989/90; Tables 6.11 and 6.12 for 1990/1 and 1991/2)
Total Government Expenditures (current plus development): Tables 3.8,4.8, 5.5 (Government Consumption plus Total Investment), and 6.4 (all converted to constant prices of 1987 by GDP deflators)

If we neglect variations between the three countries and take only the most recent two years for each country, we could strike an average figure for foreign donations, as a percentage of total expenditures on furthering science and technology. On this basis, approximately 70 per cent of scientific and technological activities seem to be financed from abroad.

Summary of the statistical evidence

In this chapter we have assembled for the four countries, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, the figures that are available on expenditures designed to advance their science and technology. In addition, again to the extent that they are available, we have identified the sources of the funds expended, separating local from foreign. We have not discussed the uses to which these resources have been put, that being the subject of the next two chapters; but we have examined the overall changes in both expenditures and finances over time, in order to determine their trends. We have also tried to relate these changes to concurrent changes in macroeconomic variables.

The main finding is that expenditures on advancing science and technology have increased somewhat, from abysmally low levels (of the order of a US dollar or two per head of the population), since the adoption of Structural Adjustment Programmes. The modest increases (to approximately twice the previous figures) are apparent whatever the basis against which they are calculated: in absolute amounts, as a fraction of total expenditures of the governments, and as a fraction of the assistance these countries receive from abroad.

When we break down total expenditures into those provided by the national governments and those from abroad we find that increases have come about chiefly from foreign donations (and loans). The governments of the countries have, at best, just been able to maintain their contributions; the institutions engaged in R&D and in technical education have not been able to dislodge other claimants for the limited amounts of money that the governments can expend. Foreign assistance has compensated for the shortage of local funds to a certain extent, and of this foreign assistance, an increasing share appears to have been allocated to advancing science and technology. It is as if foreign donors recognize the importance in the long run of advancing science and technology and admit the difficulty faced by African governments in reallocating their own resources to this desirable end. But it does seem that if science and technology are to flourish financially, they will flourish only through the contributions of outsiders.

Table 7.8 Foreign donations for science and technology to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as a percentage of total expenditures on science and technology 1981/2-1991/2 (millions of units of national currency, at constant prices of 1987)

Sources:
Government Expenditures: Table 7.7, columns 9-11 for Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania, Table 7.4 for Uganda
Total Expenditures: Table 7.1, columns 5-8
Foreign Donations: by difference (for Uganda, foreign donations and loans)

Table 7.9 Foreign loans and grants to R&D institutes as a percentage of total capital expenditures to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, various years 1981-1992 (billions of units of the national currency, at current prices)

Sources:
Local Financing: Tables 4.13 and 4.15 (R&D Institutes and all universities); 5.22; 6.11 and 6.12; and 7.8; all converted to US dollars at the official exchange rate (Tables 3.1, 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1)
Note:
^a Local financing of both recurrent and capital expenditures

What we could not resolve was the issue of the effect of adopting Structural Adjustment. A comparison between those countries 'adjusting' and those not (Table 7.6) was not revealing, chiefly through a lack of comparable data. To our knowledge, no one else has collected data on expenditures on science and technology for other countries over an extended interval. We did not have the resources to examine, ourselves, expenditures in Sub-Saharan African countries not subject to the constraints imposed by the foreign lenders, and others have not yet attempted the task. It is quite possible that the funds available to advance science and technology in these, non-conforming, countries have increased too; perhaps via the same device, namely increased donations by foreign bodies. We do not know the answer: our guess would be that foreigners have not been so generous to those Sub-Saharan African countries which do not have the 'seal of approval' awarded to those which conform to the conditions imposed by the Bank and the Fund.

But we should not leave the issue unresolved; we have one tactic that we can employ - that of the counterfactual. We can try to estimate what would have happened in the countries we studied, in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, had Structural Adjustment Programmes not been adopted.

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