A great deal of past literature focuses on the challenges to technological upgrading in Africa and the consequent difficulties for African firms to compete in global markets. Similarly, the research on the destructive impact of International Financial Institutions policies on Africa's higher education is extensive. However, the implications of the weakening of Africa's knowledge production system on the continent's prospects to advantageously integrate global value chains have largely been neglected. This paper attempts to embed the discussion on Africa's knowledge production system in a developmental framework. In doing so, the paper examines how ideological shifts have shaped policy approaches to higher education and development policy. It acknowledges that the creation of knowledge implicates and is implicated in power relations. Those who have superior technology cannot only generate but also gather, control, monopolise and disseminate knowledge according to their interests. The paper thus argues that collaborative research projects exist within an asymmetrical structure which upholds the interests of wealthy countries and large multinationals and maintains African firms at the bottom of value chains.