ZIMBABWE has been adjudged a weak performer in terms of human development in areas of research, knowledge and innovation.
This was revealed in the sixth edition of the Global Knowledge Index (GKI) Leaders report for 2022, which ranked the country at 113th position out of 132 countries in the Global Knowledge Index 2022.
The latest report was launched by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in conjunction with Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation.
Zimbabwe was also ranked number 21 out of 25 countries with medium human development.
This comes soon after the 5th edition of the GKI leaders report for 2021 revealed that the country slipped 26 positions from its 2020 ranking of 104th to 130th out of 154 countries in terms of knowledge infrastructure.
The 2022 GKI report showed that some of the strengths of the country were investments in telecommunication services, renewable energy consumption, and research in higher education.
Areas of improvement included the mobile broadband basket and logical performance among others.
UNDP produces the GKI annually as a measure for tracking the knowledge performance of countries in pre-university education, technical and vocational education and training, higher education, research, development and innovation, information and communications technology, economy, and the general enabling environment.
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It also provides diverse and reliable data on development issues, which helps countries and decision-makers to understand and respond to related transformations and challenges more clearly.”
Last year, Zimbabwe’s neighbour South Africa was ranked the highest in knowledge development in Africa, and Botswana had good rankings.
The global index also revealed that the United States is a leading performer in terms of its knowledge infrastructure, ranked number one out of 132 countries in 2022, and number one out of the 60 countries with very high human development. In 2021, the US was ranked third in human development.
