UAE leads North Africa, Western Asia in WIPO GII 2024

According to World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024, released on Thursday, the UAE has achieved the 32nd position worldwide.

Taking a broader view, among the Middle East economies, only the United Arab Emirates (32nd), the Islamic Republic of Iran (64th) and Oman (74th) have improved their position since 2013, the GII noted.

Among the high-income group, the UAE is among six economies from Northern Africa and Western Asia, driven in large part by their natural-resource-driven high GDP per capita – a key factor for this analysis.

Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, Singapore and the United Kingdom are the world’s most innovative economies, while China, Türkiye, India, Vietnam and the Philippines are the fastest 10-year climbers, according to the GII, which shows a softening in venture capital activity, R&D funding and other investment indicators.

The Global Innovation Index 2024 captures the innovation ecosystem performance of 133 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends through pillars of Institutions; Human capital and research; Infrastructure; Market sophistication; Business sophistication and Knowledge and technology outputs.

Now in its 17th edition, the GII is the world's benchmark resource charting global innovation trends to guide policymakers, business leaders and others in unleashing human ingenuity to improve lives and address shared challenges, such as climate change. This year, the GII also looks at “social entrepreneurship”, which uses private-sector practices for positive social change.