Highlights

The European Investment Bank (EIB) through the Centre for Mediterranean Integration (CMI), in collaboration with ISESCO and UN-ESCWA Technology Center, organized a regional experts’ meeting on the 19^th  and 20^th  November 2014 at the League of The Arab States (LAS) in Cairo, Egypt. This meeting aimed to initiate and develop an innovation scoreboard for the MENA that is more adapted to the region particularities, and builds on foundations laid by a previous workshop on National Innovation Systems held in Amman (November 2013).

 

In fact, while innovation is a key pillar in fostering knowledge economies, very few data is available on innovation capacities and performances of MENA countries. Innovation scoreboards are important tools that enable actors of National Innovation Systems to monitor the progress of a country innovation process, serving as a reference point for policy-makers and feeding the policy dialogue with data and information. Resource allocations are also better articulated, and benchmarking with other countries/regions is possible and leveraged.

 

This workshop gathered experts from Egypt, Jordon, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen, Bahrain and Qatar, during which the participants reached an initial agreement about the framework and the possible relevant innovation indicators to the region. A follow-up meeting with national coordinators to select the final indicators and discuss the data collection procedures will be held in Amman, on the 18^th and 19^th of March 2015.