SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION A SURE STRATEGY FOR GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

Competitiveness is increasingly important to succeed in the global economy and Kenya must improve in this area to enhance the nation’s standard of living and to catch up with the current globalisation wave.

To remain relevant and competitive regionally and globally, Kenya must plan for the future. It must chart a new road map that learns from our past failures, builds on our strengths and confronts the realities of poverty, unemployment and globalization. Kenya Vision 2030 lays the foundation for an economic revolution for the present and future leadership. The vision is anchored on three pillars with ST&I being the bedrock.

Our country is keen on joining the league of nations that are knowledge-driven or otherwise referred to as knowledge economies where creation, adaptation and use of knowledge forms the most critical factor for rapid economic growth. To fast track this aspiration, she must learn from experiences of countries such as South Korea and the BRICS which have illustrated 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 scientific knowledge.

Kenya should harness science, technology and innovation in all aspects of its social and economic development in order to foster national prosperity and global competitiveness through coordination of Kenya’s multiple institutions dealing with research and development and infrastructure development.

Strategies for promoting science, technology and innovation include; ensuring increased awareness of science, technology and innovation to facilitate the emergence of Kenya as a society that harnesses and enables its people to fully and effectively participate in the application of science, technology and innovation for solving problems and enhancing human welfare, ensuring food, agricultural, nutritional, environmental, water, health and energy security for the people. For effective application of science, technology and innovation, effective mechanism for promoting the use of existing new technologies that have broad applications such as developments in ICT, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and new materials have to be mainstreamed within the national economy system. Besides, the country need to build a strong innovation system to support the whole process of innovation by integrating participation of academia, research institutions and industry through networking focused on nurturing, developing and applying, and diffusing ST&I in the nation.

We must groom Kenyans from the youngest possible age to pursue careers and opportunities in science, engineering, technology and innovation by conveying a sense of excitement concerning the advancing frontiers, and by creating suitable employment opportunities for them; promoting the empowerment as well as full and equal participation of women and disadvantaged persons in matters science, technology and innovation.

Many opportunities abound in ST&I that should be harnessed in protecting, preserving, evaluating, updating, adding value to, and utilizing Kenya’s extensive traditional knowledge potential for sustainable national benefit. Some of these opportunities include; using scientific research and applications for forecasting, prevention and mitigation of emergencies and natural hazards, particularly, floods, landslides, drought, acts of terrorism, and epidemics.

Strengthening mechanisms that relate to technology development, evaluation, absorption and up scaling could also help realization of Vision 2030 besides promoting Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regimes that maximises incentives for the generation and protection of intellectual property by all types of inventors. The regime would also provide a strong, supportive and comprehensive policy environment for speedy and effective domestic commercialization of such inventions and innovations to maximize public good/interest. There is need to create effective funding mechanisms for national research and to provide an enabling frameworks for knowledge brokerage and venture venture capitalist to pick ideas and move them to commercial enterprises. The role of the government in suh initiatives would include providing cheap innovation grants to spin off firms, friendly tax regimes to would be investors in the technology sector and R7D system and incentives to researchers in terms of good salary package and scholarships for those pursing career in the ST&I disciplines to build a critical mass of skilled human capacity in the sector.

Above all, scientific technologies require forward looking policy frameworks that are pro-public and aimed providing relevant interventions that improve human welfare. Such policies must strive to be inclusive and broadly engaging to allow effective involvement of scientists, policy makers and the public in decision making especially at the agendas setting stages. Of course because of the high price tag of technologic advancement, there is need for in built monitoring and evaluation structure to ensure efficient use of resources and minimal wastage.

So far, there are good signs that the ST&I sector is waking up considering the remarkable number of legislations passed by the last parliament. Many more need to be done and we must build form our current position by securing our gains while strengthening our weak areas. Mainstreaming science and technology within key sectors of our economy will help leap frog this country towards a faster realization of the goals of the vision 2030. All it needs is for all to have the same strategic vision.

IT SHOULD BE A NEW PARADIGM IN COUNTY GOVERNMENTS LEADERSHIP

The Kenya people in exercising their democratic rights the constitution elected into office for the next 5 years a new set of leaders. Breaking from the past elections, the March election was for the first time done in a peaceful atmosphere and besides demonstrating to the world their confidence and respect for their judicial systems in electoral dispute resolution.

Among other firsts, this election was the first under our new constitution and actualized the Kenyan people’s desire to have a devolved system of governance. This is important for our country in many because it offered them a path to brake from the past system of authoritarian, centralized governance in which key decisions were made by a cabal of well connected beaurocratic seated in Nairobi who most of the time did not have factual details of the suffering of the people on the ground. The devolved government therefore is meant to among other things; promote democratic and accountable exercise of power, foster national unity in diversity, allow for self governance and participation of the people in decision making and to promote social and economic development especially in the respective counties.

In the elected county governments , Governors will the chief executives or ‘presidents’ of their counties and Senators  responsibility will be to ensure that effective laws for smooth running of the devolved governments are enacted. Chapter 11 of the constitution clearly state that the county government will be administered through the county executive committee while the law as governing each county will be made by  elected county representatives sitting in their respective county assemblies.

In our constitution, the Preamble outlines key fundamental national values of the people of Kenya that all Kenyan must subscribe to because they are the fabric that tie as together. It mentions among other things; our pride in our the ethnic , cultural and religious diversity, our desire to live in piece as one indivisible people, our commitment to nurturing and protecting the well being of individuals, family, community and nation and in exercising our sovereign and inalienable right to determine the form of governance of our country.  Any person who offered himself or herself for elective office need to have reflected deeply on these issues to fathom the kind of responsibility and contract they were entering into with the electorate.  Assuming that all of them did that, it is now incumbent upon them seriously reflect on the quality of leadership they want to offer to move both the national and county governments forward.

Considering the fact that elective positions are by choice want to believe that those who offered themselves for elections and who were successful went for those offices motivated by the desire to serve but not by the grandeur and the perks associated with those positions. This is because there is a lot of work that will have to be done to set up effective structures if the county governments have to yield the kind of impact that they were meant to deliver and this will most of the time call for self sacrifice and logging in long hours in meetings and travelling with very little compensation. In any case with the grinding level of poverty in most counties, it will be naïve of county leaders to opulently when the people they were elected to serve become even poorer.

 Already Senators, Governors and the county Speakers have been sworn into office and the dailies are awash with jobs for county offices. Kenyans prayer is that Governors while constituting their executive committees will emphasize meritocracy, impartiality, inclusivity and transparency and not be driven by nepotism, favoritisms and corruption. Those who take latter route direction will not only have contravened the law but betray spirit of devolved government and the constitution. Indeed, this is an opportune moment for county leaders to involve professionals from their counties in providing expert advice on socio-economic and leadership issues of their regions .One ways of doing this would be by forming sectoral professional caucuses with memberships from the county executive, the county assembly, private sectors and other non elected experts and interest groups from the counties. 

 These causes main role will be to offer expert advice on development and exploitation of resources within the county and sharing them with county assembly committees or through annual county governing conferences for purposes of setting short and long term county development agenda. The long held distrust between politicians and professional must cease if meaning development have to be realized at both county and constituency levels. Both groups must now work together as county citizens if they have to adequately contribute and be effectively involved in decision making. However, it must be done with respect and in structured responsible manner devoid of ill will to the authority of the elected office holders. The elected public officers must all be open and always remains transparent and accountable to the people. The period of “our time to eat” and of sharing the resources among the select few by virtue of their positions are no longer with us.

 We therefore do not anticipate county representatives and county executive committee member fighting over disagreements grabbing deals at the county. The county assemblies must be diligent in checking the county executives committees or else they will have failed those who elected them. Their debates must focus on how effective legislative  and policy frameworks in liaison with the executive committees that will allow counties exploit their resources through providing enabling environment for that can attract both local and foreign investors to their counties and how to address the inter and intra socio-economic disparities in the country and within the county.

 The issue of security, health, education, unemployment, and food security must be top on the agenda of all county governments. The senators therefore have a responsibility to ensure that national resources especially meant to address health; education, security and any other resources that the national governments have a duty to deliver to the counties are duly delivered. Those senators who will while away in the senate will have themselves to blame when they wake up from slumber and realize that their share of the national cake had been dished to the most aggressive senators. The times for “what about Nyando?” as was common in the parliament of yore are long gone.

Lastly, it is important to bear in mind that majority of Kenyans are thirty of transformative leaders, those whose motivations is to serve and improve their welfare. Such leadership will only come from servant leaders; those with a vision and who understand the problems and are capable of coming up with strategies to address them. Such leaders must be willing to listen, be able to ‘connect’ with people but and most importantly be ready to involve them in decision making and implementation of their development goals.  We want to believe that all Governors, Senators and county representative have all been called to serve, this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Please do not squander it. And as the French Politian Alexander Ledro Rollin once said;

“All well, am their leader, I really ought to follow them”

The questions is how many of you can say as Ledro Rollins that you are willing to follow aspirations of your electorate?

You have all taken the oath of office and now ‘Go ye out to serve’.

 PEACEFUL USE OF CHEMISTRY IS NEEDED

Chemicals influence virtually all human activity. Chemistry knowledge and manipulation has resulted to medicines and medical products that save lives and increase life expectancy to pesticides and fertilizers that tremendously increase agriculture productivity and greatly improved our quality of life.  Chemicals are widely used in the manufacturing, transport, mining, agriculture, research, energy and education sectors in Kenya. 

Chemicals play a significant role in industries, agriculture consumer and service based industries. On the other hand, there are risks posed with misuse or overuse of the same chemicals producing chemical weapons in form of poisons, explosives and bombs. For instance, chemicals like methanol and formalin have been misused to prepare lethal brews which have killed many people in various parts of the country; excessive use of pesticides fertilizers is also hazardous not only to the environment but also to human health; cause respiratory infections and even death; chemical burns from explosive acid containers and heavy metal poisoning including lead, mercury and cadmium.  Chemical

Weapons including arsenic acid have been used in warfare across the world.

The chemical sector in Kenya contributes approximately 6% to the country’s GDP and employs about 12,000 people in the manufacturing sector. Therefore risk management in the manufacture, handling, storage, transportation and disposal of chemicals is extremely important as Kenya envisages becoming a middle- industrializing country by 2030.

National approaches and innovative strategies must be employed to address chemical safety and security issues in the country.  We must develop curriculum for capacity building in chemical safety and security in our schools, colleges and Universities as well as commission more research into chemical detection systems.

Awareness must be stepped up for the public to fully understand the toxicity and hazards of chemicals and how to use and them safely. Disposal of wastes from industrial emissions and effluents which is a major of chemical to air, water and land must be managed in an environmentally sound manner.

Monitoring on effective use of chemical materials in schools and other training and research institutions that use chemicals in relatively small quantities yet they can be lethal when used in large volumes.

Kenya has not had chemical weapons but recent terrorist attacks mainly by the Al-Shabab militia who use fertilizer stockpiles and aluminum powder has posed a challenge in the country’s preparedness and response to chemical weapons. This calls for development of a coherent approach to chemical management which addresses the socio-economic advantages of chemicals as well as the risks they pose to human health and the environment. The Government through legislation must streamline the safe use, handling, importation, transportation and disposal of chemicals to mitigate against pollution, accidents and abuse.

Regional and International cooperation is paramount as chemical safety and security are beyond borders and best practices exchanges with our neighbors will enhance chemical safety and security in the region and yonder. Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear( CBRN) Centers of Excellence CoE is an European Union initiative to implement a coordinated strategy for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear risk mitigation at international, regional and national levels. They have established a centre of excellence in Kenya and opened a training centre in Manyani where the custom officers are trained on CBRN risk management.

Kenya is among the 188 State Parties who support the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by prohibiting the production, transit and use of chemicals. Kenya receives support in training of personnel and detection equipments as a State Party and is expected to conduct regular security vulnerability assessments as well as implement security enhancements and create security management system towards ensuring chemical safety and security in the country.

The International Centre for Chemical Safety and Security (ICCSS) was set up by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the implementing body of CWC to foster chemical security and safety among manufacturers, academia, researchers, governmental agencies and users of chemicals.  ICCSS promotes chemical safety in national capacity building for peaceful research, development. Storage production and safe use of chemicals and also promotes assistance and cooperation for developing countries. The OPCW would like to set up a similar centre in Kenya to serve the African region by establishing a foundation for effective and coordinated approach to chemical safety and security. The project is expected to create national and regional capabilities for chemical safety and security for peaceful uses of chemistry and for infrastructure projects.

The OPCW will assist Kenya and African nations to develop integrated training framework, in capacity building through training of trainers and overall assist them to implement international obligations to ensure a free Chemical Weapons world. The African centre will help build capacity in the area of preparedness for and response to incidents involving the misuse or release of toxic chemicals and promote public awareness of dual concerns of chemicals materials.

The effective implementation of this project will require synergies between national and regional institutions involved in chemical activities including governmental, international research centers and private companies. Kenya is a major route for bulk chemicals for use in both agricultural and industrial manufacturing in the East African region and promoting a culture of safety and security in chemical activities must remain a priority for Kenya and the region.

STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS THE SHORTAGE OF TEACHING STAFF IN OUR UNIVERSITIES

For the last 10 years, this country has made significant gains in the education sector especially within the basic education sub sectors with free primary and subsidized high school education programs. These programs have led to a tremendous increase in the enrollment of students in primary and secondary schools resulting in the proportional increase in the demand for chances at college and university education in the country. For this reason, the government recently increased the number of public universities from 7 to 22 in preparation for a grandiose plan to build the required human capacity required to drive national socio-economic development. Though a remarkable initiative worthy of commendation, the shortage of of qualified lecturers and the quality of university education that our universities are offering need to be handled carefully as a matter of priority. The Public Universities Institutional Audits released by the Commission for University Education recently made public worrying trends within the sector with the revelation that our universities have only a few lecturers with doctorate degrees and that most teaching is done by people with master’s degree qualification. Already, the rush by new universities to tap into existing qualified manpower pool that exist in the country is already sending alarms that things may not be well for old universities and research institutes who hold  a significant  pool of quality scholars and scientists. If left unchecked, this will further compromise many issues not only in our universities but the entire research sector.

How then do we address this important national challenge? As I have said in many forums, our university administrative systems must start to think of innovative mechanisms that will ensure that they develop and retain quality human manpower if they have to offer quality training. Allow me to suggest a few short and long term strategies that could alleviate the problem of low PhD-qualified lecturers.

In the short term, universities will need to develop crush programs that will ensure they attract and retain qualified manpower for teaching. Such programs may involve offers of lucrative part time positions to those within the public and private sectors with at least PhD level training or initiating to offer their services as ‘professors or researchers in practice’ transferring their long years experiences in public and private service as lecturers. Universities also need to introduce competitive sabbatical programs for Kenyans and other scholars within the country and in the Diaspora who may be willing to come to Kenyan universities for short periods of 1 semester to teach. More importantly, the universities must ring fence their best, offer them Masters and PhD scholarship to build their own teaching pool. Opening up opportunities for those who have retired from service but who may still be willing to serve on contract could also alleviate the biting shortage of qualified teaching staff in our universities.

Long term strategies to address lack of adequate university teaching staff may involve establishing centers of excellence and research chairs in areas in which there are significant gaps. The centre of excellence should be modeled in ways that will nurture talents at PhD and postdoctoral level in all disciplines. Research chairs will require that the universities set aside a significant amount of research fund that distinguished scientist and scholars can use to conduct research but also offer postgraduate mentorship thereby helping build required quality human resource capacity in the university. In developing such a model, the private sector needs to be looped in to create synergy between the university and the labor market. Involvement of the private sector could also be extended to areas of curriculum development, teaching positions and research partnerships. Even as universities undertake all these initiatives, they must make sure that lecturers are imparted with relevant pedagogical skills through continuous in service training and that quality and relevance of training is not compromised.

Our universities must adopt a vibrant collaborations and linkages model through networks with other Universities in the region and the rest of the world. This will open opportunities for visiting professors to come to our local universities through academic staff exchange programs and also offer our lecturers opportunities to teach in foreign universities. This will not only allow for knowledge exchange and diffusion but will provide a good platform for technology transfer and adoption of best practices that exist in other institutions in the world. Overall, the Universities must take advantage of opportunities of capacity building offered through joint collaborations between Kenya- South Africa, National Commission for Science and Technology and Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Kenya DAAD Scholarship programme for doctorate training, Pan Africa University and other regional capacity building opportunities to increase the number of Kenyan doctorates. This must be well coordinated from the University who should encourage their staff.

It must however be made clear that these programs will require huge resources and strong management and leadership skills. The universities must address issues of working conditions such as better remunerations, clear career growth paths and scholarships among other incentives. It is only through such measures that our universities will minimize challenges of brain drain and moonlighting currently rampant in our universities. Such programs must be clearly stipulated to reduce management-staff problems that are the source of university strife among the teaching staff and university administration. Achievement of the desired results will therefore call for strong leadership and administrative skills be hinged on right policies. Lastly, higher education institutions must be strengthened to respond to societal needs and challenges through new academic programmes and, innovative pedagogical methods centered on problem-solving. Thus, they must be well staffed and equipped to impact on the society.

COUNTY GOVERNMENTS MUST USE SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AS TOOLS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

From the just ended general election, it is clear that the mode of governance in this country has changed given that there will be two tiers of governance at national and county levels. National government will basically coordinate national security and defense, health, education and development of road infrastructure while the county government will to a larger extent charter the development trajectory of counties depending on their specific and available resources. This paradigm shift places a huge responsibility on newly elected county leaders especially governors and calls upon them to come up will effective people-friendly policies and  strategies that will ensure optimal exploitation of resources that for a long time have been underutilized. However, it is important to bear in mind that even as development will be determined from ‘mashinani’ with ‘wanjiku’ being at the centre of each decision, our national values and aspiration must always be kept alive. The only way to ensure that this is done will be for county governors to synchronize county government Marshall plans with national development blueprints especially the Vision 2030.

The counties that want to move forward will have to undertake both an inward and outward retrospection. Inwardly, the governors and the entire leadership will have to determine the resources available within their borders and come up will strategies that will enable the county maximize on their use. Outward retrospection will involve an impartial SWOT analysis that will enable the county  develop sectors in which they have a competitive edge over other counties while keeping in focus areas in which they will require to form collaborative partnership with other counties and national government to grow. In many counties, a lot of focus will have to go towards addressing challenges of high levels of poverty, public health, education, food and water security, unemployment, climate change and environmental degradation. In my opinion, only counties whose leadership will embrace and adopt innovative scientifically proven technologies to address these problems will be on the true path to sustainable socio-economic growth.

The governors in counties that want to leap frog and catch up with other counties like Nairobi must first of all remain open to expert advice and use research-based policies to drive their development agenda. This may call for such governors to engage science advisors capable of interpreting research findings and translating them into sound policies with respect to the needs and aspirations of their counties. More importantly, this will require that counties development agenda clearly identify key sectors which will most likely benefit from interventions of science, technology and innovation( ST&I) besides availing required resources to move the programs forward. In this era of transparent accountable and public-driven governance, the leadership must from the onset set clear indicators and time lines on how to achieve agreed targets.

Already things are beginning to look up for those counties that will want to use ST&I as an enabler. Two recently enacted laws; the Universities Act 2012 and the ST&I Act 2013, provides national frameworks that will allow counties to tap into ST&I potential for their development plans and besides assurance for quality university education and research. For instance, through the ST&I Act, the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NCST&I) will outline national research agenda thus providing national compass on the direction the county should take as far as Research &Development (R&D) is concerned. Alongside NCST&I, there will be the National Research Fund (NRF) which will ensure effective coordination and funding for research that have socio-economic impact. On the other hand, University Act 2012 will ensure harmonized university education and quality assurance to boot. And taking into consideration the recent increase in numbers of public university spread across various counties within the country, the county governments need only to reposition to tap into the quality human capacity and research that will come from these institutions.

More importantly, counties must develop innovative strategies that will ensure that the counties realize sustainable growth for the benefits of their citizens. The leadership must consider as their key responsibility the need to serve with clear visionary milestones geared towards improving the socio-economic status of their people. Using the equalization funds, counties that have for a long time been marginalized will need to invest in certain areas such as education, health, human capacity building and road infrastructure for faster “catch up” with other relatively developed counties. Counties that have had some measure of growth need not rest on their laurels. The new dispensation offers such counties the opportunity to reorganize themselves to be centres of excellence in many areas. They have an opportunity to export both goods and services to the counties that may be lacking in such. It will also be imperative for the leadership in counties that are relatively more developed to set good governance structures that will ensure the entire citizenry partake of the socio-economic benefits instead of being just for a privileged few. Indeed, it must be business unusual for it is not the time to manage by exclusion but the time to involve all in decision making through transparent accountable public consultative processes.

The onus is also on the national government to provide the necessary support to the county governments in areas in which there may be challenges if sustainable development at both national and county governments is to be realized. This will call for pragmatic inclusive planning in which key ministries consult and fuse economic planning with technology planning. In my opinion, the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of State for Planning and the Ministry responsible for Science, Technology and Innovation or their respective departments at the county government must strive to synchronize their budgets and programmes and make sure research work that guarantees socioeconomic development are prioritized. If everything is important then nothing is important and we must prioritize.

Lastly, county government will need to benchmark with other counties and even with other countries to learn and adopt best practices that can be useful in spurring county and ultimately national development. The county leadership must ensure that their development agenda create a lasting and sustainable impact on the society. The national agenda has to be cascaded to the county level to ensure that programs at county build up to the national development agenda. I am persuaded that use of science, technology and innovation will provide more effective tools for faster national and county growth. Our governors must therefore strive to embrace technology, research and innovation if they want to leave a legacy after their 5 year tenure in office.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY

Nuclear energy has many advantages if countries adopt IAEA guidelines on infrastructure and adhere to the treaties and conventions on nuclear energy to ensure the efficient development of safe and secure nuclear energy programmes. The advantages of nuclear include a reduced and stable energy price, national energy self-reliance and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as industrial growth and development.

THE REAL GROUND BREAKERS: INNOVATION IN KENYA

http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/features/the-real-ground-breakers-innovation-in-kenya-1.html