During the period 2000-2013, Africa’s expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP marginally increased, by 0.23 per cent, in North Africa and 0.01 per cent in the rest of Africa. Regardless of the marginal increases in Africa, the figures are substantially lower than those of other groups of countries. In 2013, developed countries registered increases of 2.36 per cent, developing countries 1.16 per cent and the world as a whole 1.70 per cent. A similar trend is also observed for Africa in terms of the number of full-time researchers.