There are two well-known and often-quoted facts about Sub-Saharan Africa. One is that, in spite of significant progress made in recent years, Africa remains the least developed region in the world and is unlikely to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The other is that Africa fares very poorly in terms of research and innovation; it produces only about 1% of the world's research publications and 0.1% of global patents, and the bulk of these emanate from just two countries--South Africa and Nigeria. There is a clear link between these two phenomena, and while there is general acknowledgement that the research output from Africa must be dramatically increased in order to overcome the development challenges, achieving that objective appears to be elusive. Promoting research that leads to innovation, which then directly impacts on development remains a challenge for Africa. This article describes the constraints that prevent Africa from producing research, the benefits of developmental research in Africa, and two examples (the Adapted Hoe Project at the University of Development Studies, Ghana and Shea Nut Processing at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso) that illustrate the huge potential for developmental research and the enormous benefits to communities, universities, and the country.