To develop the country, we need an environment of innovation

Mr Chris Obore is the director of communications and public affairs at Parliament.

Like any other country, Uganda faces a myriad of development questions. Unemployment and poor service delivery are currently at the centre of our social, economic and political friction. There is no one policy option that will resolve all the questions, but we need to debate all the alternatives available.
Because of the viciousness of the unemployment challenge, we have tended to only view the causes largely from the political angle; which is true, but not broad enough.


In trying to answer the questions, we have tended to concentrate more on providing bridging solutions and less on long-term solutions. Such bridging solutions include Entandikwa, Naads, Youth Livelihood Programmes and campaigns for foreign investors.


Bridging solutions are not bad because they address the most current and urgent needs, but they have the potential of keeping us running in circles. For instance, when we focus on attracting foreign investors, do we care to understand what technology they bring? We are in the era of rapid technological advancement, especially in Europe and other developed continents. Because of technological disruptions, some industries in Europe could be transporting obsolete technology to poor countries like Uganda. If we focus on attracting such industries, we risk losing as they will simply set up base here for short-term benefits yet we are giving them incentives at the cost of taxpayers.


We need to use public money in ventures that will not be rendered obsolete by technological changes which we do not have control over. To have control over technology, we must build a culture of innovation. But first, let us minimise investors who simply transport obsolete technology to us. And then we need to take advantage of our natural endowments. But how? Sustainable development must be premised on research and development (R&D). That means we need to deal with our education system first.


What do we teach? Why do we teach it? How do we teach?
The State must put money into research and development and that would mean we must have a Research and Development Institute. The private sector that benefits from R&D must contribute financially to the running of the institute. Research and development helps in creating an environment of innovation. Our emphasis on classical university education is part of our problem. Therefore, we need to balance classical universities with universities of applied sciences.


Classical universities are training students who upon graduation, find what they learnt at university irrelevant on the labour market because of technological disruptions. It’s not the students’ fault. This is where universities of applied sciences become relevant to us.


In addition, our classical universities seem to be helping us collect a number of Bachelors, Masters degrees and PhD, which in my view, have only become useful for power-point presentations without providing answers to the questions of the day. It’s the innovators that we seriously need today, not numerous PhDs because there is a limit we can do with models. Our local innovators have no avenues of advancing in knowledge because our classical universities do not provide, for instance, a degree in carpentry or artisanship.


So, instead of shopping for scholarships abroad or spending public funds sending a few individuals abroad to study, we could reverse the policy and connect our education institutions with foreign centres of innovation. Let us connect our schools to foreign schools promoting innovation and tap the knowledge. Scholarships in my view have failed to create a critical mass needed to help us utilise our natural endowments. In any case, even those who get scholarship do not find an eco-system that supports them to operationalise the knowledge and skills they acquired.
However, to have an eco-system of innovation, we also need to tune all our policy levels to support and promote innovations. District councils, ministries, Parliament and Cabinet should all work to create the eco-system of innovation. In other words, all leaders - both political and bureaucratic should work to build enablers, not barriers to innovation.
Money is not the main limitation. I am confident to say that money is there, but how we deploy the money creates the difference. Public officers particularly must care where the money we use comes from and try to represent the interests of society. When we start to treat our placements as responsibility and opportunity to positively influence the destiny of a nation, then we start to build enablers, not disablers.


Even when technology is rapidly changing and threatening jobs, it does not replace the place of human beings in determining the direction a country takes. We still need human beings to make judgments, understand and interpret what is going on. Machine will not do that. Let us focus on building an eco-system that will support our industrialisation and innovation hence reduce on unemployment.


That eco-system must also support realisation of substantive outcomes and not merely dwell on procedures.

Mr Obore is the director of communications and public affairs at Parliament.
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