From Highest Literacy to Highest Innovation
Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate in Africa under-pined by an education system that produce globally acclaimed professionals. How can Zimbabwe harness the highest literacy rate into highest innovation for sustainable economic development towards vision 2030. Through the respective ministries of education the government has set the ball rolling in driving innovation. It’s the right time to unpack macro factors which are outside the good education system so that we maximise the innovation dividends that accrue from a highly literate nation.
A 2014 World Economic Forum research on the issues affecting innovation in Zimbabwe provides useful insights. The biggest factor was access to funding contribution 25 percent, policy instability 21 percent, inadequate supply side infrastructure 14 percent and corruption 11 percent. With the limited funding in Zimbabwe, big investments in infrastructure such as transport, water, communications and electricity take precedence since they lay an over-arching foundation for economic development. The key is how to embed innovation funding in these national projects, to align and prioritise available innovation funding and to attract more.
Considering government alone, innovation is being funded in fragmented direct and indirect ways which dilutes the macro impact. For instance, apart from state universities and research institutes, the telecoms industry is taxed 2 percent Universal Service Fund, 1 percent Innovation fund and 5 percent health levy which is a total US$88Million based on 2017 industry revenue. The ZIMDEF and duty on technology imports can fund innovation.
The Zimbabwe policy target for research and development expenditure is 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (DDP) compared to actual 0,76 percent in 2014. The Sub-Sahara Africa spend is 0.4 percent South Africa spend 0,8 percent, Zambia 0.3 percent and Botswana 0,5 percent.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays a big role in driving innovation through transfer of best practices, technology, skills between locals and international companies. It helps local enterprises access sister companies and global markets which provides economies of scale for innovation. Zimbabwe should not only attract more FDI but has to be targeted at diversified and high-tech sectors rather than industries focused on resources extraction alone. The Industrialisation Policy is pivotal in translating high literacy rate to high innovation. The policy should identify industrial sectors, products for value-addition, the technological skills, infrastructure required and align an innovation policy accordingly. Technology transfer rather than consumption must be core to the Industrialisation policy.
Zimbabwe needs a critical mass of researchers to trigger innovation. Currently, Universities, research institutions and private sector have inadequate financial and human resources to conduct research and development. A national innovation policy should align government structures, private sector, universities and research institutions to avoid a multiplication of priorities and sub-optimal implementation of policies. The policy should define the supply-side and demand-side national objectives that creates capacity for the generation and industrial application of knowledge.
Zimbabwe has to attract international students, researchers and professors. In fact, 6 percent of SADC tertiary students study abroad. This ratio is higher than the regional average for sub-Saharan Africa 4.9 percent and three times the world average 2.0 percent. Zimbabwean students studying abroad was 30 000 in 2013. The Zimbabwe Presidential scholarship scheme should be modified to include agreements with countries and organisations so that people are send to work at innovation centres and they bring back knowledge and skills.
Zimbabwe should have a policy to offer citizenship coupled with incentives for scientist and engineers. The total research and development staff per million inhabitants is Zimbabwe 118 compared to South Africa 432, Zambia 40, Botswana 179, Tanzania 18 and Senegal 362. Israel implemented an immigration policy that allowed scientists and engineers to enter the country, giving Israel the highest number of engineers per capita in the world which is 140 per 10,000 employees and is more than twice the level of the United States or Japan.
The research output in terms of publications should increase. In 2014, Zimbabwe produced 21 publications per million inhabitants in internationally catalogued journals. This placed Zimbabwe sixth out of the 15 SADC countries, behind Namibia 59, Mauritius 71, Botswana 103, South Africa 175 and the Seychelles 364. The average for sub-Saharan Africa was 20 scientific publications per million inhabitants, compared to a global average of 176 per million. In absolute numbers, the scientific output rose from 173 articles in 2005 to 310 in 2014.
Zimbabwe is an agrarian economy and therefore should leverage agriculture research and innovation. Agriculture is one of Zimbabwe’s major fields of research and also one of the biggest dating back to 1903. The country has to restore the capacity of national agricultural research centres and build new capacities using latest technologies. That way, the high literacy rate can yield demand driven innovation given the importance of agriculture to the economy.
A lot of innovations emerge from political, social and economic problems. For instance, the Second World War strife resulted in the following innovations. The Jerrycan was invented to transport fuel by hand and pressurised cabin used in commercial airlines today was invented to enable pilots to breath normally at high altitudes. The ballpoint was invented to allow pilots to write orders at high altitudes, where reservoir pens were prone to leakage. Nuclear power and the computer were invented that time as well. Zimbabwe has gone through a difficult time and therefore an opportune time for innovation.
The recent cooking shortages reminded me of the 1980s when a businessmen in Wedza would buy all the groundnuts and sunflowers and use a locally made machine to make cooking oil. My grandmother never used to buy any cooking oil because she made it herself from groundnuts using a stone grinder called guyo. Despite the high literacy rate, Zimbabwe lost these local knowledge systems due to lack of innovation for mass usage. For many generations the yoked ox is the ultimate farm operations mechanisation in the majority of rural areas. Yet Zimbabwe produces high quality learners yearly and has thousands of professionals in the diaspora with access to knowledge in the advanced economies.
Zimbabwe had almost 2 decades of economic sanctions. During that time mobile money services consumption grew exponentially, enabled in part by a high literacy rate. However, the usage is yet to be translated into production of any of the technologies in the value chain. There are 143 mobile money services active in sub-Saharan Africa which is half of the global deployments. Zimbabwe has an opportunity for a regional innovation driven software industry. However when graduates join industry, they learn this technologies for the first time. There are many other examples of gaps that must be closed to convert literacy rate driven consumption to innovation for economic development.
There are case studies to illustrate that Zimbabwe can use literacy rate to drive innovation and leapfrog the historical problems. Cuba is an island that suffered 54 years USA sanctions yet it is a leader in health and education innovation. The adult literacy rate is 99 percent. Cuba’s child mortality rate is six deaths per 1,000 births is on par with the rich countries and higher than the global average 42.5 deaths per 1,000 births. The average life expectancy is 79.1 years which matches USA. Cuba was first to develop a meningitis B vaccine and to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mother to child. They developed treatments for diabetic foot ulcers and a cancer drug.
Taiwan is an outstanding in the best use of Human Capital for economic development. Taiwan is a rocky country in with no natural resources and they even import construction sand and gravel from China. Instead of mining minerals, Taiwan built the fourth-largest financial reserves in the world by mining the brains and knowledge of its 23 million citizens. Israel is also another case for an education and innovation economic success story. The bible says Moses spent 40 years leading Jews through the desert but only to bring them to Israel, a country without oil in the Middle East. However, Israel is one of the richest countries in the Middle East due to mining knowledge and innovation from its highly educated human resources.
Research by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that the more money a country makes from national resources and the lower the knowledge and skills of their high school population. This demonstrates that when a country doesn’t have resources, it can become resourceful. The countries with the most companies listed on the Nasdaq are Israel, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore which have basically no natural resources. The 21st-century economies’ global currency is knowledge and skills which is produced by education and innovation. Fortunately anyone can print as much as they want without central bank interference.
Education as a universal human right and a prerequisite for economic growth, human development and poverty reduction. Apart from using education as an input to innovation strategies, Zimbabwe should use innovation to improve the quantity and quality of education. For instance, innovation in educational gaming that improves thinking skills and conceptual understanding. Simulations for virtual online laboratories provide low-cost access to experiential learning across the country. Innovation that enables real-time assessments, allow teachers to monitor student learning and adjust their teaching on the fly.
Zimbabwe’s Innovation absorptive capacity is determined by the quality of secondary and undergraduate education and the industrial training. The creative capacity is driven by the quality of postgraduate education, availability of qualified scientists and quality scientific research institutions and a national innovation policy that aligns all stakeholder to achieve specific priorities. The funding can never be enough but the trick is prioritisation of available funds. In 2014, the total research and development expenditure for Zimbabwe was US$118Million compared to South Africa US$5,5Billion, Zambia US$101Million, Botswana US$184Million and Tanzania US$624Million.
The Zimbabwe innovation funding model has to achieve the policy objectives and align education and innovation. The 2014 funding for R&D for South Africa was business sector 45 percent government 23 percent, Universities 29 percent and non-profit organisations 3 percent. Zambia was driven by Universities with business sector 2, government 19 percent, Universities 78 percent and non-profit organisations 1 percent. The Botswana funding model was slightly more balance across all sectors business sector 18, government 13 percent, Universities 51 percent and non-profit organisations 18 percent. There some countries like Senegal were the funding was government driven.
The competitiveness the 21st century country is driven by the quality of the education, information technology and innovation instead of counting the gold, diamond and oil reserves. At rubiem Innovations they say “The Future is on minding innovation not on mining resources.”
Dr Dennis Magaya writes in his personal capacity. He is CEO of rubiem Innovations, a Pan-African company. He can be reached on [email protected], +263 71 777 0666 , Twitter @Dennis_Magaya , @Innovatihub