Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi has urged government representatives across Africa and members of the private sector to make greater investment into education, innovation and ICTs.

Nyusi was speaking at the 7th annual Innovation Africa Summit in Maputo, organised to discuss education, innovation and IT in Africa.

"The investments needed to build and expand the necessary infrastructure are enormous. We need to devote a significant part of our scarce financial resources to education programmes, particularly those that are focused on use of ICTs."

Mozambique's government recently announced it is extending the partnership between its Communications Regulatory Authority (INCM) and the country's Centre for Research and Transfer of Technologies for Community Development (CITT) to build Community Multimedia Centres (CMCs) in rural areas.

CMCs were first established in 2003 following an agreement by representatives from Senegal, Mali and Mozambique with the Director General of UNESCO to reduce the digital divide.

Andrea Emiliani, Business Development Executive, IBM, headline sponsor of the event, said the company is among those who enjoyed the opportunity of having key decision makers in one place.

"It's been a pleasure for us to be here again. A great opportunity for us to meet the leaders that are shaping the agenda of the education system in African countries."

Intel, Microsoft and Huawei also participated, while ministers representing Uganda, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Sudan, South Africa, Rwanda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Madagascar also attended.

The 2017 Global Innovation Index (GII), released in June by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) GII found that South Africa is the most innovative country in Sub-Saharan Africa followed by Mauritius and Kenya.

The three countries are placed in 57th, 64th and 80th respectively on the global ranking.

The report also found that Sub-Saharan Africa draws its highest scores for innovation in institutions and market sophistication.

It also stated that economies such as Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Rwanda, and Burkina Faso perform on par or better than some of their development-level peers in Europe and South East Asia, East Asia and Oceania.