“Self-transformation arising from within our economies must play a central role in the process of economic development for our region.”
This was said by Prof. Margaret Kamar, the Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology of Kenya, while officially opening the third meeting of the COMESA Committee of Science, Technology and Innovation, in Nairobi. She said that sound macro-economic policies are not sufficient to deliver development and that African countries need to have appropriate policy instruments, and also make these policies relevant to the micro, small and medium enterprises in order to develop their economies from within.
“Our policies and programmes should seek to define action plans engineere towards enhancing the potential of the MSMEs to unlock the value of the resources within the region,” she said. Prof. Kamar emphasised the need to have adaptive links between innovation and development, and other instituted activities like education, research, the private sector development and public usage of technology.
“The development of the South East Asian Tiger economies is a testimony to these synergies. Therefore, when planning science, technology and innovation programmes, we need to start with the people and make the programmes simple and peoplecentred to a level that is accessible to the common person.”
She added that with a youth population of 65-70 percent, Africa is going to be the world’s innovation workshop and that the developing countries have the opportunity to lead the transition to the development of the green economy. Secretary-General, Mr Sindiso Ngwenya, said that wide ranging and far reaching decisions had been made by the COMESA Authority concerning the identification of science parks and industrial and artisanal clusters within the region.
“We need to seriously consider whether focus should be on doing basic research and creating new knowledge or on searching for existing knowledge and technologies and applying them,” Mr Ngwenya said.
He added that a lot of interest has been generated in the COMESA intellectual property policy due to it sfocus on development and regional priorities. “The critical issues arising from intellectual property laws and policies need to be adequately appreciated as a necessary ingredient of any major initiative. The intellectual property aims to transform the region into a modern economy that is innovation driven rather than raw material driven as is currently the case.”
The meeting, held on 17 September 2012 at the Silver Springs Hotel, was attended by delegates from Burundi,Comoros, DR Congo, Egypt, Eretria,Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar,Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sudan,Swaziland, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and NEPAD.