Economic Modelling Framework
Overview
The framework increases societal benefit while mitigating investment risk, confirmed by case studies on the MeerKAT and Square Kilometre Array Telescope programmes.
The framework establishes a multi-layered system for understanding how large-scale space science and technology investments translate into sustained socio-economic benefit within developing economies. Rather than treating infrastructure, skills development, industry participation, and governance as isolated variables, the framework positions them as a dynamic system where institutional quality, technological capability, and African value chains evolve together.
A critical strength lies in its reliance on growing, longitudinal datasets across employment, skills pipelines, supplier networks, research outputs, and firm-level productivity. These time-series enable testing not only whether benefits exist, but how they emerge, compound, and interact over time. This data accumulation converts the framework into a progressively more precise decision-support tool for government and funding agencies, enabling policymakers to identify which combinations of institutional support, procurement design, and skills investment most strongly amplify labour productivity, innovation, and industrial upgrading.
Why this matters
African governments and international funders invest billions in science and technology infrastructure annually, often with limited understanding of whether these investments generate lasting economic benefit or simply create impressive facilities that operate in isolation. The Economic Modelling Framework replaces assumptions with data-driven analysis, showing which investment structures actually deliver promised benefits and which dissipate after construction phases end.
The framework transforms how Africa approaches science and technology investment. Rather than accepting whatever economic benefit happens to occur, African nations can actively design procurement, skills development, and industry participation structures to maximize local capability building and economic transformation. For international funders, the framework provides accountability mechanisms showing whether science investments achieve developmental goals beyond scientific outputs.
Perhaps most importantly, the framework demonstrates that science infrastructure investments can be reliable engines of inclusive economic growth when properly designed. This evidence counters narratives that position science investment as luxury spending, showing instead that strategic science investment, guided by robust economic frameworks, accelerates the very development outcomes African nations seek.
