A past Comesa meeting. Our region has to develop a mix of resources and skills to adapt to the changing processes of value creation. Photo/FILE
Science, technology and innovation are quite important for any country or region in the modern knowledge based economy.
We live in an era where reliance on knowledge and information is seen as a prerequisite for growth and competitiveness — shifting away from traditional factors of production.
There is continuous creation, dissemination, and use of knowledge as a tool for competitiveness and economic growth.
This era has seen significant scientific and technical advances, particularly in biotechnology and information and communication technology (ICT).
Consequently, trade in high intensive knowledge goods and services has been growing fast globally.
Science and technology (S&T) if properly harnessed offers new opportunities for development in areas of importance for developing countries such as those in our region.
The question we need to ask ourselves is: have we done enough to utilise S&T for development?
Properly harnessing and using various platforms in S&T such as ICT can go a long way in providing solutions to some of the challenges people in our region face in areas of agricultural productivity and nutrition, education, health, energy, and environment among others.
S&T and innovation hold the promise to ultimately achieving Millennium Development Goals such as those relating to reduction of poverty and hunger and promoting public health through access to medicine, promoting universal education, and reducing maternal mortality.
Also, science and technology, including ICT, drives sustainable growth and development.
First, we need to foster a robust innovation-friendly policy framework.
This structure should comprise a clear, stable and well designed macro economic framework; enhanced human capital through “empowering our people to create and innovate”; and developing an effective and efficient intellectual property rights regime as a critical enabling tool for innovation.
Emphasis should be placed on fostering research and development through cooperation and collaboration within and outside the region.
Second, the need for financing the innovation process — financing will be necessary to encourage the development and utilisation of S&T.
Both public and private entities need to be encouraged to engage and sustain their research activities.
Public funding for research and innovation is absolutely critical.
Private sector funds can be leveraged once innovation programmes are credible enough to make business sense in the region.
Third, realising the potential of intellectual assets for new types of value creation and value addition — the process of value creation is continuously changing and new sources of growth are emerging.
The importance of intellectual assets such as intellectual property rights, designs, and brands are evolving and becoming increasingly important elements for value creation.
Investment in intellectual assets is far outweighing that in physical assets — the biggest and most powerful and influential companies of the world are those with enormous intellectual property assets, reaping income on royalties and more importantly, keeping the skills and tricks of innovative products they bring to the market.
Our region has to develop a mix of resources and skills within new innovation ecosystems to adapt to the changing processes of value creation.
Fostering education
Fourth, fostering education and skills for innovation. We need to develop an integrated approach to innovation policies by linking education standards and economic outcomes.
We need to have more people to be entrepreneurial and skilled in areas of S&T and innovation with a right mix of transversal skills such as adaptability and increased use of ICT in order to reap benefits of innovation.
And fifth, we need at the regional and national level to proactively promote public-private partnerships involving research and academic communities, industry and the private sector at large, and government.
These partnerships will provide the effective framework for translating ideas and inventions into innovative products that have economic gains, and a regulatory regime that protects the assets and promotes a culture of innovation through incentives and other public supportive mechanisms.
Harnessing S&T and innovation for development requires political leadership, policy coherence, and policy coordination.
It needs to be integrated fully into national economic policies in ways that cut across the priorities of different ministries.
Policy making for S&T and innovation needs coordinated strategies that engage the public and private constituencies.
In this regard, we need concrete, bankable, programmes to implement.
Lack of convergence
We cannot talk about regional integration without looking at what is taking place globally, including in the multilateral trading system.
It is now common knowledge that the Doha round of talks might not be concluded this year due to lack of convergence on important issues for developing countries in the areas of agriculture, non agriculture market access, and services, among others.
As we undertake our regional integration programmes, we need to have multilateral rules that support the process.
We can only have these rules if we make serious input in the rule making processes.
We therefore need to adopt more strategic approaches and thinking on multilateral processes to make them reflect our interests and be beneficial to our region.
Comesa will be upscaling its work programmes in the area of the WTO and other trade negotiations.
As Comesa, there is need to work out strategies for effectively engaging in multilateral processes.
As regards the introduction of the additional band of five per cent to the Common External Tariffs (CET) structure under the Comesa Customs Union, the Secretariat has undertaken studies on revenue and competitiveness.
Some member states have a substantial number of tariff lines at five per cent and in terms of incidence the five per cent tariff rate is concentrated on raw materials and capital goods, which have zero per cent rate under the CET.
Introducing five per cent band will, therefore, raise the cost of capitalisation and production, but would in turn have the potential to raise revenue.
The Secretariat is available to work closely with member states that have difficulties in generating lists of sensitive products.
However, the five per cent issue should not impede the implementation of transition.
Ngwenya is Comesa secretary general.
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