Innovation, Regional Integration, and Development in Africa PDF
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Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Mammo Muchie Editors Innovation, Regional Integration, and Development in Africa Rethinking Theories, Institutions, and Policies Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development Series editors Diery Seck CREPOL - Center for Research on Political Economy, Dakar, Senegal Juliet U. Elu Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, USA Yaw Nyarko New York University, New York, NY, USA Africa is emerging as a rapidly growing region, still facing major challenges, but with a potential for significant progress – a transformation that necessitates vigorous efforts in research and policy thinking. This book series focuses on three intricately related key aspects of modern-day Africa: economic, social and political development. Making use of recent theoretical and empirical advances, the series aims to provide fresh answers to Africa’s development challenges. All the socio- political dimensions of today’s Africa are incorporated as they unfold and new policy options are presented. The series aims to provide a broad and interactive forum of science at work for policymaking and to bring together African and international researchers and experts. The series welcomes monographs and contributed volumes for an academic and professional audience, as well as tightly edited conference proceedings. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, economic policy and trade, regional integration, labor market policies, demographic development, social issues, political economy and political systems, and environmental and energy issues. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11885 Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba • Mammo Muchie Editors Innovation, Regional Integration, and Development in Africa Rethinking Theories, Institutions, and Policies Editors Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Mammo Muchie Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute Tshwane University of Technology University of South Africa Pretoria, South Africa Pretoria, South Africa ISSN 2198-7262 ISSN 2198-7270 (electronic) Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development ISBN 978-3-319-92179-2 ISBN 978-3-319-92180-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92180-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949362 © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents Reframing the Debates on Innovation and Regional Integration in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Part I T heories and Concepts of Innovation and Regional Integration Networked System of Innovation for African Integrated, Smart and Green Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Mammo Muchie Innovation and Regional Integration in Africa: Exploring Theory and Praxis for Socio-Economic Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Innovating the Political Economy of Pan Africanism: Imagination and Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Abu Girma Moges and Mammo Muchie Innovating Policy and Systems of Innovation for Regional Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Christopher C. Nshimbi Transnational Simultaneity: An Emerging African Perspective of Cross-Border Lifestyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Adebusuyi Isaac Adeniran Knowledge Valorisation for Inclusive Innovation and Integrated African Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Saidi Trust v vi Contents Part II R egional Institutions and Innovation in Africa Regional Integration Prospects, Challenges and Opportunities in Africa: A Case of the Tripartite Free Trade Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Moorosi Leshoele The Regionalism-Innovation Nexus: The ECOWAS Experience . . . . . . . . 121 Adeoye O. Akinola Institutional Capacity and Regional Integration: Reflections on the Composition and Powers of the ECOWAS Parliament . . . . . . . . . . 137 Ikenna Mike Alumona and Stephen Nnaemeka Azom Innovation and Economic Development in West Africa: The Challenges of Implementing ECOPOST in Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Adetola Odubajo The Role of Cloud-Based mHealth Disease Surveillance System in Regional Integration: A Case of the Ebola Crisis in ECOWAS . . . . . . . 171 Lang Loum and Dikeledi A. Mokoena Higher Education, R&D, and Challenges in National Innovation System Building of Angola . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Eurico Josué Ngunga Part III Sectoral Innovation and Integrated Development in Africa Regional Integration and Knowledge Flows: Effect on Manufacturing Productivity in Southern Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Alexis Habiyaremye Regionalism and Failure of the African Manufacturing Sector: Technology Transfer Policies as a Missing Link. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Deus Costantine Shirati Intra-African Trade and Innovation in the Agricultural sector . . . . . . . . . 237 Foluso Akinsola and Motunrayo Akinsola Unemployment and Informal Entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe: Implications for Regional Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Kingstone Mujeyi and Wilbert Zvakanyorwa Sadomba Analysis of Agricultural Innovation and Decision Making among Maize Farming Household in Nigeria: A Gender Approach . . . . . 267 Opeyemi E. Ayinde, Tahirou Abdoulaye, Mammo Muchie, and Oluwafemi O. Ajewole Social Innovations as a Response to Municipal Failures in Africa . . . . . . . 283 Innocent Chirisa, Liasion Mukarwi, Abraham R. Matamanda, and Aaron Maphosa Contents vii Science and Technological Capability Building in Global South: Comparative Study of India and South Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Swapan Kumar Patra and Mammo Muchie Part IV C onclusion: Setting Research Agenda for Innovation and Integrated African Development Conclusion: Setting Research Agenda for Innovation and Integrated African Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba and Mammo Muchie Reframing the Debates on Innovation and Regional Integration in Africa Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba Innovation has been very critical and central to the establishment of modern indus- trial societies. The transformation of former agrarian societies of Europe, United States of America in nineteenth and twentieth centuries and of recent, Asia was largely due to the development of National Systems of Innovation. In order to facili- tate development, the State in these countries formulated public policies that priori- tised investment in research and development with focus on innovation. In the United States of America for instance, investment in technology was initially focused on building military capability. Although such investments did not have commercial orientation as the overriding objective, they laid the foundation for the future industrial and technological innovations that the country has witnessed over the past two centuries (Moweri and Rosenberg 1993). Innovation has been defined as the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations (OECD 2005, 2012). Although governments usually provide the leadership and appropriate enabling environments for innovations, they are not the only agent in the process of deploy- ing innovation for development. Other agents involved in generating innovation include firms and universities. Scholars like (Lundvall 1992, 1994, 1997; Nelson 1993) emphasise the role of the firm in fostering innovation, while Adeoti (2016) stresses the critical role of universities in innovation and development. Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000) explicate on what they call the Triple Helix of university- industry- government relations in fostering innovation. In this respect, they argue that ‘as the role of the military has decreased and academia has risen in the institu- tional structures of contemporary societies, the network of relationships among aca- demia, industry, and government have also been transformed’ (p. 109). S. O. Oloruntoba (*) Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 1 S. O. Oloruntoba, M. Muchie (eds.), Innovation, Regional Integration, and Development in Africa, Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92180-8_1 2 S. O. Oloruntoba Since independence, African countries have suffered from low capacity for inno- vation and development due essentially to the nature and character of the state, its location in the global knowledge production flows and the skewed international capitalist system (see Oloruntoba 2016; Ake 1981). Africa occupies the least rank in the Global competitiveness index and scores very low in research and development. Mugabe (2011:5) identifies various features of National Systems of Innovations in Africa, which contributed to the low position of the continent in global competitive- ness rankings. These features include the reality that: science and technology is narrowly defined to mean R&D, little emphasis on innovation aspects such as tech- nology prospecting, procurement and diffusion, lack of explicit innovation policies, few and weak institutional linkages and collaboration, weak engineering and entre- preneurship capabilities, Limited financial resources for technological innovation, low levels of technological readiness and innovation capacities and generally poor and neglected R&D infrastructure. Recent efforts at national, regional and continental levels to boost innovation through the establishment of National Systems of Innovation and regional systems of innovation have not yielded enough results. Yet, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (2013:11) notes in its study on innovation notes that, ‘inno- vation capacities are vital for diversifying and differentiating the production and trade portfolios, providing a chance to “leap-frog” -technological progress and fac- tor efficiencies may well account for half the economic growth in dynamic economies”. The weaknesses in the capacity of the state to foster innovation necessitates a regional integration approach to innovation, in which ‘networks of people, institu- tions and markets’ are brought together to ‘spur innovation and related creative activities’ (UNECA 2016:11). Mugabe (2011) notes in this respect that there is a renewed focus on accelerating regional economic and political cooperation in Africa. He adds that regional economic integration makes it possible for African countries to pool their economic diversity and assets together and build bigger mar- kets as well as trading blocs. It is also an important mechanism for assembling resources for the production of regional public goods (p. 2). Studies on innovation have traditionally been focused on building National Systems of Innovation through the formulation of appropriate policies and creation of the right environment through support for research and development (OECD 2011). However, given the weaknesses of many of the states in Africa, their extrac- tive nature and dependence on foreign donors, it has become imperative to adapt a regional approach to building capability for innovation and competitiveness. This is very important for several reasons. One, despite the artificial boundaries, African states share many things in common. Two, there are diversities in the level of inno- vation and competitiveness of states. The similarities and the diversities among states can be harnessed to foster complementarities and synchronisation of policies and institutions geared toward building capacities for innovation and development. Three, various free trade agreements are being negotiated at the regional and conti- nental levels with the overall aim of building synergy, creating value chains and boosting market access.
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