The days of waiting decades for global technology to reach African shores are officially over.
According to the World Intellectual Property Report (WIPR) 2026, titled Technology on the Move, innovation is now diffusing across borders at historical heights, with digital tools reaching users in days rather than years.
However, the report, which draws on 250 years of data, warns that while the speed of diffusion has increased, the capability to turn those tools into economic growth remains unevenly distributed.
From Decades to Days: The New Pace of Tech
Historically, game-changing inventions like the automobile or the telegraph took decades to scale globally. Today, thanks to a hyper-connected digital economy, the adoption lag has effectively collapsed.
Real-time Diffusion: Digital technologies can now reach almost every country on earth within days of launch.
Vanishing Barriers: Patent citation analysis shows that international knowledge flows have doubled in speed over the last 50 years. By 2020, the time gap between domestic and international ideas had nearly disappeared.
Daren Tang, WIPO director general, noted that while the tools travel faster, the economic payoff isn’t automatic:
“Faster diffusion of technology… can enable economies to accelerate economic growth. But this will not happen by chance, it requires deliberate and coordinated investments in human and institutional capacities.”
The Four Pillars of Diffusion
Why do some technologies explode while others stall? The WIPR identifies four factors that determine if a country actually benefits from new tech:
- Tech Characteristics: Modular, low-cost tools (like mobile apps) spread faster than high-capital systems (like power grids).
- Information Flows: AI and digital platforms have slashed the cost of learning, allowing for rapid uptake.
- Absorptive Capacity: This is the big one for Africa, the local muscle (education, R&D, and technical skills) required to adapt global tech to local needs.
- Public Policy & IP: Regulatory frameworks and Intellectual Property (IP) systems act as the steering wheel for how broadly tech spreads.
Sector Spotlight: Agriculture, Green Tech, and Digital
The report took a deep dive into three critical sectors, revealing a “good news, bad news” scenario for emerging markets:
The Usage Paradox
In a surprising shift, the report finds that some parts of Asia are now using digital technologies more intensively than advanced economies in the West. This proves that the traditional “leader-follower” dynamic is breaking down.
However, innovation leadership (the actual inventing) remains highly concentrated in the US, Western Europe, Japan, and China.
The Takeaway
For tech ecosystems in regions like Nigeria and Kenya, the message is clear: Access is no longer the problem; absorption is.
Policymakers can no longer just wait for tech to arrive; they must build the institutional pipes, IP systems and modern infrastructure, to ensure that when innovation lands, it actually sticks.
