FUNDING INNOVATIONS CAN SPUR OUR ECONOMIC GROWTH

Kenya is one of the emerging economies in Africa that is seen as a future star due to its vibrant democracy and economic growth. It has competent manpower necessary to carry out research collaborations and innovations. A more remarkable characteristic of that trend is that emerging markets have increased their innovation and R&D faster than high-income countries. These markets are also largely driving the growth in patent filings worldwide.

This infrastructure is taking shape with a lot of investments in roads and technology. Nairobi for example is seen as an innovation hub, especially in mobile money and applications development, and the mobile penetration in Kenya is high and there is access to broadband for high speed Internet.

The Kenya Vision 2030 recommends strengthened application of science, technology and innovation to raise productivity and efficiency levels across different sectors. It  identifies  the  critical  role  played  by innovation, research  and  development  (R&D)  in accelerating economic development in all the newly industrializing countries of the world. The Vision recognizes the role of science, technology and innovation (STI) in a modern economy, in which new knowledge plays a central role is in wealth creation, social welfare and international competitiveness.

In the Global Innovation Index 2013 (GII), Kenya is ranked at position 99 out of 142 in the world with Low-income economy in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Switzerland retains top spot in 2013. Both Switzerland (1^st) and Sweden (2^nd)'s performance reflects the fact that both countries are leaders in all pillars of the GII. The United Kingdom (3^rd) has a well-balanced innovation performance (ranking 4th in both input and output), in spite of a relatively low level of growth in labor productivity. The United States (5^th) continues to benefit from its strong education base (especially in terms of top-rank universities), and has seen strong increases in software spending and employment in knowledge-intensive services. Mauritius is leading in Sub-Saharan Africa and ranked 53^rd globally while Uganda tops the East African countries and ranked 3^rd in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Coherent strategies

The GII is a recognition of the key role that innovation serves as a driver of economic growth and prosperity. It is also an acknowledgement of the need for a broad horizontal vision of innovation that is applicable to both developed and emerging economies, with the inclusion of indicators that go beyond the traditional measures of innovation such as the level of research and development in a the country. The GII is therefore a valuable benchmarking tool to facilitate public-private dialogue, whereby policymakers, business leaders and other stakeholders can evaluate progress on a continual basis.

Kenya intends to become a knowledge-led economy wherein, the creation, adaptation and use of knowledge will be among the most critical factors for rapid economic growth. Experience from countries such as South Africa, Senegal, Ireland,  China and Chile illustrates that rapid progress can be made over relatively short periods of time by pursuing coherent strategies  and building the capabilities to create, access, and use knowledge. The positive effect of technological advances is reduction in the cost of transport and communication and created new opportunities for business and employment through the innovation output.

Innovation is a dominant factor for a country’s competitiveness. It fuels a countries growth, drives future success and is the engine that allows a country to sustain her viability in a global economy. Kenya must be able to create and commercialize a stream of new products and processes that extend the technology frontier. One way to get changes to take hold is to give recognition to original ideas thus creating a culture of innovation. Once a critical innovation threshold is reached investment money continues to fuel the engine, successful talent attracts more talent, and the cycle of innovation becomes endless.

For Kenya to improve its ranking, we should walk the talk on supporting innovators to be competitive internationally. Retain, attract and generate talent and combine them with local talent. We need to increase funding for the sector and strengthen the Public Private Partnership. It is also important to provide venture capital to fund incubation and start-ups for viable innovations.

We need to support and encourage the development of strong Intellectual Property (IP) protection system by filing patents and licenses domestically and internationally, maintaining strong internal policies and processes for protecting their own IP and establish a strong national IP regime.

The Kenyan Government committed itself to allocate 2% of its GDP to fund research in the country starting 2013/2014 financial year which is a good step forward for a low-income country. Highly ranked countries in the GII like Singapore, Switzerland, and Sweden contribute 2.1%, 2.9% and 3.4% of their GDP respectively and score higher in indicators including; political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory and business environment, knowledge and technological outputs. There is need for us to improve in this areas so that we can compete with them.