There is a severe lack of engineering capacity in sub-Saharan Africa, says a report by Africa-UK Engineering for Development Partnership that looks at the causes and suggests remedies

The report ‘Engineers for Africa: Identifying engineering capacity needs in Sub-Saharan Africa’ was produced by the Africa-UK Engineering for Development Partnership, which brings together the engineering community in Africa and the UK in a consortium comprising the Africa Engineers Forum, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers and Engineers against Poverty. The aim of the Partnership is to strengthen the capacity of the African engineering profession and promote mutually beneficial links between engineers in Africa and the UK.

Authored by Petter Matthews, Lily Ryan-Collins and Dr Jill Wells from Engineers Against Poverty and Dr Hayaatun Sillem and Holly Wright from the Royal Academy of Engineering, the report identifies engineering capacity needs, in terms of the size and skills base of the work force in sub-Saharan Africa and sets out potential approaches to meeting these needs.  In doing this, the authors consulted professional engineers and other engineering stakeholders from across the region. While it is not a fully comprehensive study of the variations across countries, it does offer some insight into the issues involved.

Sub-Saharan Africa suffers a chronic lack of indigenous capacity in engineering and there are not enough engineers graduating within the continent to meet the demand in some of the countries.

“Sufficient engineering capacity is essential to the economic and social development of any country,” says the report. “It is a basic requirement for the sustainable provision of infrastructure that enables better healthcare, access to education and the development of an attractive environment for foreign investment. It is also a key driver for innovation and growth.”

Poor infrastructure development in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa has led to insufficient road networks and major energy shortages, resulting in the continent lagging behind other developed regions. This highlights the need for the continent to nurture and develop its own expertise and capacity in engineering and thus enable solutions to be developed within the region rather than by imported experts.

The lack of data available on the engineering capacity within the continent is a constraint when planning how to address gaps. The report is accompanied by three supporting documents: a literature review; an analysis of an electronic survey of 113 professional engineers and 29 decision-makers from 18 countries; and an analysis of a set of interviews with 15 engineering stakeholders with experience of leading projects in various African countries. The majority of those interviewed worked in the in the civil engineering sector, suggesting a predominance of civil engineering activity in the region.

The summary report outlines the scale and nature of Africa’s capacity needs, considers the causes of low capacity in engineering sectors, assesses the impact that low capacity has on development, and presents a number of possible approaches to increasing engineering capacity in the region.

The report’s authors identified evidence of a shortage of engineers in all of the countries for which data was available: South Africa, Rwanda, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. The deficit of skills is often in the public sector and particularly in government posts in rural areas. But the notable levels of unemployment among engineering graduates also suggest that the problem is more likely an inadequate number of engineers with sufficient skills and experience, rather than as an insufficient number of engineers.

While this may be partly due to the dominance of foreign engineering firms who import foreign labour, the key reason identified in this study was that engineers were graduating without the necessary skills and experience to be employable.

One interviewee from Zambia explained that, “The universities are able to churn out the engineers in numbers… but many of them do not have the skills to be able to operate in a global economy”. Reflecting the scale of this problem, the Kenyan Engineering Board has in the past withdrawn recognition for engineering degrees from three of Kenya’s public universities.

The report identified a variety of factors that contribute to the lack of engineering capacity, ranging from global market forces to inadequate education. Government policies or approaches to engineering have often resulted in a low level of public investment in engineering projects over several decades which, in turn has severely limited opportunities for African engineers to gain marketable skills and experience. Of the professional engineers who completed the survey for this study, 42% believed policymakers had a poor understanding of engineering issues.

African governments also often fail to put in place adequate legislation to protect engineering standards or properly enforce existing legislation. A failure to enforce local content laws in relation to foreign engineering firms also damages local capacity, with foreign firms not being compelled to transfer knowledge to local engineers. This is worsened when governments award public contracts to foreign firms who utilise their own labour rather than local contractors.

Another factor highlighted is poor quality education and workplace training, with 40% of professional engineers who responded to the survey stating that engineering education in their country did not provide graduates with the skills required. “Tertiary engineering education (in universities and technical colleges) in many countries in SSA has not received the investment needed to keep pace with the developed world in recent decades,” says the report.

Engineering courses are often overly theoretical, based on outdated curricula, and are not relevant to local needs, with many Engineering faculties without the resources to provide appropriate laboratory experience. Low salaries for academic staff makes it difficult to attract high quality faculty staff, with many teachers also often engaged in other activities to earn extra income, distracting them from teaching.

Finding work placements in industry is very difficult for African engineering students and this prevents them from gaining the experience necessary for them to be employable after graduating. Even in the workplace, a lack of training for graduate engineers contributes to low capacity in the region.

Engineers with marketable skills and experience are often inclined to migrate to other countries for better pay and working conditions, resulting in a ‘brain drain’ of the profession from Africa and within the region.

As well as moving to other countries, talented engineering graduates are also attracted to careers in non-engineering sectors such as banking, finance, IT and management consultancy which pay higher salaries and have city locations.

This lack of engineering capacity has led to a widespread reliance on foreign engineering contractors, the report says, and this reliance on foreign firms can result in capital flight and remove potential employment opportunities from the local market. It can also result in buildings and other structures that don’t reflect or suit local needs.

While the challenges involved in building engineering capacity in sub-Saharan Africa are daunting, the study highlights a number of approaches to address the key causes of low capacity.

The severe lack of engineering capacity at every level of the profession in sub-Saharan Africa is a significant obstacle to achieving almost all development goals, from the provision of basic sanitation to the reduction of rural poverty, says the report.

“The key causes of low capacity include: a lack of government investment in engineering skills development right along the pipeline; out-of-date curricula and teaching methods at universities, resulting in graduates lacking required skills; weakness of professional institutions, leaving professional engineers unsupported and resulting in insufficient or non-existent registration processes; lack of knowledge transfer from foreign engineering firms; failure by the private sector to provide sufficient CPD; and ‘brain drain’ of engineering talent to other sectors and other countries.”

Overcoming these causes of low capacity is a formidable task. But, it is one that is achievable with the right level and mix of research, investment and policy making. By “improving investment decisions and supporting more effective deployment of resources”, governments in sub-Saharan Africa can make significant strides in addressing the lack of domestic engineering capacity and work with the engineering profession to better understand the problem and develop policies and practical approaches aimed at addressing it.

Top image: Sasol (mediaclubsouthafrica.com)