Call for AU to Revise Approach to Innovation

Professor Norman Clark was invited to give a keynote address at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) Donors’ Breakfast. The Breakfast, which was an opportunity for ACTS to interact with their donor community and to share the centre’s achievements, took place in Nairobi on 30 January 2015.

Professor Clark, who has also been invited to join ACTS’ Governing Council, spoke on The African Development Agenda and Strategic Priorities for Foreign Aid Post-2015: The Case for Aid for Science, Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development. His main message was a critique of the current African Union approach to innovation which, focusing as it does on research and development, has little to say about actually stimulating innovation in poor countries.

Although Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) investments are essential for sustainable development, it is important to decide what kinds of investments, in what types of bodies and with what objectives. DFID’s Research into Use programme with which Professor Clark was heavily involved, demonstrated that scientific knowledge is mainly useful when the development context is appropriate. The African Union’s approach, however, remains focused on increased funding for African science and relevant institutions, irrespective of context.

Recent research increasingly questions the efficacy of this approach, highlighting the relative neglect of issues associated with economic development (such as entrepreneurship, economic production, youth unemployment and income generation) and the need to revisit and revise regional and national policy dialogue.

View slides of: The African Development Agenda and Strategic Priorities for Foreign Aid Post-2015: The Case for Aid for Science, Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development.

Read more in Technology Development Assistance for Agriculture – Putting research into use in low-income countries (Clark, Frost, Maudlin and Ward), which reviews part of the DFID programme as a case study of a broader issue of technology development for Africa.