There is a common misconception that innovation is born in laboratories, research parks and venture-backed startups. For decades, the global narrative has celebrated the number of patents filed, research expenditure, unicorn valuations and technological breakthroughs as the primary indicators of innovation. These measures have undoubtedly helped identify important advances in science and technology. However, they tell only part of the story.
Across Africa, innovation often looks very different.
It emerges from farmers adapting to increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. It appears in informal markets where entrepreneurs redesign products to suit local purchasing power. It is found in community health workers who use simple mobile technologies to reach patients in remote villages, or in developers who build services around USSD and SMS because they understand that accessibility matters more than technical sophistication.
These innovations rarely dominate international headlines, nor do they significantly influence global innovation rankings. Yet they solve problems that millions of people experience every day.
This raises an important question for governments, investors, research institutions and technology companies alike: Are we overlooking some of the world’s most impactful innovations simply because we are measuring them through the wrong lens?
Recent research by Maree and colleagues (2025), published in The Conversation, argues precisely this point. Their work demonstrates that most innovation indicators used across Africa are inherited from high-income economies, where innovation is typically formal, research-intensive and supported by substantial institutional investment. While metrics such as R&D expenditure, patent registrations and the number of researchers remain valuable, they often fail to capture the incremental, necessity-driven and community-based innovation that characterises much of Africa’s economy (Maree et al., 2025).
This matters because what we choose to measure inevitably influences what we choose to support.
Governments allocate funding based on measurable outcomes. Investors look for signals that indicate future growth. Development agencies prioritise programmes supported by quantifiable evidence. When our measurement frameworks overlook entire categories of innovation, they unintentionally overlook the innovators themselves.
Innovation Designed Around Reality
Perhaps one of Africa’s greatest strengths is that innovation here rarely begins with technology.
It begins with reality.
Design decisions are shaped by unreliable connectivity, intermittent electricity, multiple local languages, varying literacy levels, limited disposable income and devices that may be several generations old. These are often described as barriers to innovation. In reality, they have become some of Africa’s greatest catalysts for creativity.
Designing for reality requires asking fundamentally different questions.
Rather than asking, “What is the newest technology available?” the question becomes, “What technology will actually work for this community?”
Instead of assuming that every user owns the latest smartphone with unlimited data, innovators ask how essential services can be delivered through devices people already have. Rather than expecting users to change their behaviour to accommodate technology, successful African innovations adapt themselves to existing behaviour.
This approach reflects many of the principles advocated by human-centred design frameworks, particularly IDEO’s Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, which argues that successful innovation begins with understanding people’s lived experiences before proposing technological solutions (IDEO.org, 2015). Across Africa, however, this philosophy is not simply considered good design practice. It has become a necessity.
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in digital inclusion.
Mobile money services such as M-Pesa fundamentally changed financial inclusion across East Africa without waiting for universal smartphone adoption. By leveraging existing mobile infrastructure, the platform expanded access to financial services for millions previously excluded from formal banking (GSMA, 2024).
Similarly, digital agriculture platforms continue to reach smallholder farmers through USSD, voice technologies and SMS because these channels align with how rural communities already communicate. In healthcare, telemedicine initiatives increasingly combine messaging applications, voice services and community health workers instead of relying exclusively on sophisticated digital platforms.
These examples are sometimes described as “frugal innovation.”
I would argue they represent something more profound.
They demonstrate that designing within constraints often produces solutions that are more inclusive, more scalable and ultimately more sustainable than designing under ideal conditions.
Africa’s Challenges Are Becoming Global Design Problems
Africa undoubtedly faces significant structural challenges.
The continent continues to experience high youth unemployment despite having the world’s youngest population (African Development Bank, 2024). Climate change increasingly threatens agricultural productivity and food security across multiple regions (IPCC, 2023). Healthcare systems remain under pressure, particularly in rural communities where specialist services are limited. Despite remarkable progress in mobile connectivity, digital exclusion continues to affect hundreds of millions of people across the continent (International Telecommunication Union, 2024).
These realities are often presented solely as development challenges.
Yet they are equally innovation challenges.
History repeatedly demonstrates that periods of constraint often become periods of exceptional creativity. Limited resources encourage simpler solutions. Scarcity forces efficiency. Infrastructure gaps inspire alternative delivery models.
In many respects, Africa has become one of the world’s largest living laboratories for designing technology under real-world conditions.
This is becoming increasingly relevant beyond the continent itself.
As climate resilience becomes a global priority, populations continue to urbanise, infrastructure ages and affordability becomes a growing concern even in developed markets, the conditions under which African innovators have been building for decades are becoming increasingly universal.
The lessons emerging from Africa are therefore no longer relevant only to Africa.
They are increasingly relevant to the world.
Rethinking How We Measure Innovation
If innovation exists to improve people’s lives, then our methods of measuring innovation should reflect that purpose.
Patent counts remain valuable.
Scientific publications remain valuable.
Research expenditure remains valuable.
However, they should be complemented by measures that better capture the realities of African innovation.
Researchers have already begun outlining this direction. Maree and colleagues (2025) recommend expanding innovation measurement to include informal entrepreneurship, grassroots innovation, digital inclusion, environmental sustainability and contributions toward the Sustainable Development Goals. They further argue that stronger local research capacity is essential if Africa is to define innovation on its own terms rather than relying exclusively on imported frameworks.
This shift is particularly important because nearly 83% of employment across Africa exists within the informal economy (International Labour Organization, 2024). Ignoring innovation within this sector means overlooking the environments where millions of Africans solve problems, create livelihoods and generate economic value every single day.
Innovation should therefore be evaluated not only by the sophistication of the technology itself, but also by the scale of the problem it solves.
How many farmers improved productivity?
How many patients gained access to healthcare?
How many young people secured livelihoods?
How many communities became more resilient?
These outcomes deserve to sit alongside patents and publications as indicators of meaningful innovation.
The Opportunity Ahead
Africa stands at a remarkable point in its innovation journey.
The African Continental Free Trade Area is creating new opportunities for regional collaboration. Rapid urbanisation is reshaping markets. Mobile connectivity continues to expand. Artificial intelligence is lowering barriers to digital service delivery, while the continent’s youthful population represents one of the world’s largest sources of entrepreneurial energy.
The opportunity now is not simply to build more technology.
It is to build technology that reflects the realities of the people it intends to serve.
For investors, this means recognising that some of the continent’s most valuable innovations may not initially resemble traditional venture-backed models.
For telecommunications companies, it reinforces the importance of maintaining channels such as USSD, voice and messaging alongside newer digital experiences if digital inclusion is to remain a strategic priority.
For research institutions, it presents an opportunity to develop African-centred theories, datasets and innovation frameworks that better reflect the continent’s unique context.
And for policymakers, it offers a reminder that evidence-based decision-making is only as strong as the evidence we choose to collect.
Ultimately, designing for reality is not about accepting limitations.
It is about recognising context as one of innovation’s greatest assets.
For too long, Africa has been viewed primarily as a market needing solutions.
Increasingly, it should be recognised as a continent developing solutions that the rest of the world can learn from.
Perhaps the future of innovation will not be defined by who builds the most advanced technology.
It may well be defined by who builds technology that works for the greatest number of people.
Africa has been doing exactly that for decades. It is time our measurements, our investments and our narratives reflected this reality.
