However, most developing countries are at various stages of acquiring STI competence and capabilities, while least developed countries and Pacific island developing States have yet to put in place STI infrastructure and develop suitable policies to harness the potential benefits of STI. This situation can be gauged from the 2015 Global Innovation Index,3 which shows that only 6 Asia-Pacific countries are among the top 20 countries. ( In 2013, in high income economies, 2.3 per cent of GDP was spent on such activity, compared with only 0.3 per cent in low income economies (Fig 3).