Leveraging Science and Technology Parks to Accelerate Africa’s Growth: The DPSIR Approach

Abstract

Science and technology parks are major investments that are majorly focused on realizing faster economic growth and innovation. The parks carry great prospects for regional economic diversification. However, over the years, Science and technology parks have encountered challenges that call for proactive management, sound policies and innovativeness. This paper used the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impacts and Response (DPSIR) approach to determine how Africa can leverage science and technology parks to accelerate growth. The study used secondary data from books, scholarly journals and technical reports. After the published sources were collected, an analytical framework was developed with three categories including drivers, pressures and impacts. The results of the study indicate that the main drivers of science and technology parks development are government policy, academic research, urge by countries to keep pace with technology and public private partnerships. It was also established that the parks had impacts such as promoting economic development and sustainability in urban growth as well as improving knowledge transfer from universities to industry. Governments have responded by coming up with policies that support the establishment of these cities. The study recommends that governments and other stakeholders need to invest more in science and technology parks through policies and public private partnerships to accelerate growth in Africa.