Pakistan’s rank drops to 107th position in Global Innovation Index 2020

LAHORE: Pakistan further dropped to 107th place in the latest Global Innovation Index 2020 from last year’s 105th rank – even lower than Nepal and Sri Lanka in Central and Southern Asian group of countries.

In contrast to showing gradual yearly improvements during the last five years or so, Pakistan emerged among least 25 innovative countries in the world and 8th among 10 regional economies as per Global Innovative Index 2020 (GII) released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, in partnership with Cornell University and INSEAD.

Published annually since 2007, the GII is said to be a leading benchmarking tool for business executives, policy makers and others seeking insight into the state of innovation around the world. The core of the GII report consists of a ranking of world economies’ innovation capabilities and results.

Recognising the key role of innovation as a driver of economic growth and prosperity, and the need for a broad vision of innovation applicable to developed and emerging economies, the GII includes indicators that go beyond the traditional measures of innovation, such as the level of research and development.

Regional countries like India and Iran succeeded in improving their respective rankings while showing excellent performance in relevant areas in 2020 index. In the Central and Southern Asia, India became top 50 best performers in the world after getting the rank of 48, the highest rank in the region, followed by Iran with ranking of 67. Pakistan is not even top 100 economies in the world this year.

Moving up four positions since last year, India becomes the third most innovative lower middle-income economy in the world, thanks to newly available indicators and improvements in various areas of the GII. It ranks in the top 15 in indicators such as ICT services exports, government online services, graduates in science and engineering, and research and development-intensive global companies. Thanks to universities such as the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, and its top scientific publications, India is the lower middle-income economy with the highest innovation quality.

In the upper-middle income group, China (14th), Malaysia (33rd), and Bulgaria (37th) had held the top three positions since 2016. Thailand (44th) remains the 4th economy in this group, while Romania (46th) ranks 5th (up from 8th last year). The Russian Federation (47th) keeps its 6th position among upper-middle income economies since 2017.

Among the lower middle-income group, Vietnam (42nd) is at the top, followed by Ukraine (45th, up by 2) and India (48th, up by 4). The Philippines (50th, up by 4) moves up into the 4th position, In East Asia, and Oceania, Indonesia (85th) joins the top 10, ranked 9th.

The United Republic of Tanzania tops the low-income group (88th), gaining nine positions since last year and two positions within its income group. Rwanda (91st) goes down to 2nd place, which it held in 2017 and 2018. On 95th position, Nepal ranks 3rd (up from 6th last year). Two economies enter the low-income group top 10: Madagascar (115th) and Mozambique (124th), while Senegal (102nd) and Ethiopia are at 127th rank.