A Review of Innovation for Development: Africa

In this article, the authors propose a strategy for national development in Africa. Drawing analogies between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and development, the authors posit that development also takes place in stages, with basic essential needs at the bottom of the pyramid. The authors point out the absence of social networks in Maslow’s framework, remedying that with a sociocultural element that underlines national development. The chart is presented below.

The argument is that forms of development higher up the pyramid are not sustainable if those lower in the pyramid are not attained. It therefore behooves African governments, the primary bodies engaged in innovation for development, to prioritize investments accordingly. The authors argue for a holistic, rather than linear, approach to this strategy. “In order to put its people on the path to self-actualization, a nation as a people must acquire the capability to provide for their most basic human needs”, state the authors.

One of my professors compared an economy to a child riding a bicycle. It may not be the best analogy but it might help here. To ride the bicycle, the child must first learn to ride the bicycle. This process is foundational and essential to the goal. Without that, a more embellished bicycle does the child no good; neither does a better road. In reality, learning to ride a bicycle may not be that difficult, but could we say the same for providing access to clean and safe drinking water? Like the authors exemplify, “there’s a loss of 443 million school days each year in sub-Saharan Africa due to lack of access to adequate quantity and quality of safe drinking water, resulting in millions of deaths and causing annual GDP losses of 5 percent”. Along with others, this lack of basic and essential human services short-circuit higher order development plans.

The argument is that basic essential human services are a pressing need in Africa, and countries must build domestic capacity in order to sustain higher levels of development. So, what is Africa to do? The authors propose a two-part strategy: One, prioritize national investments in the order of human needs; and two, build domestic capacity to assure sustained delivery of essential human services to citizens. The authors categorize capacity building into 8 factors as shown in the table below.

Further discussing this strategy, the authors describe the negative effects of Official Development Assistance on development by citing three reasons: unfavorable donor conditions, inconsistent long-term development, and suppressed domestic capacity. These reasons further stress the need for governments to build capacity towards development. The authors end on an optimistic note by giving examples of innovations taking place across the continent in energy, governance, human resources, and others. With her huge untapped human resource, Africa possesses the potential to innovate towards development -one step at a time.

Notes

Garrick E. Louis, Neda Nazemi, and Scott Remer (2017). What do science, technology. and innovation mean from Africa. (C. C. Mavhunga, Ed.), The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England.