TODAY I have decided to feature an article written by a colleague.
HELEN ZULU writes:
ZAMBIA like any other country in Africa has abundant raw materials which require creativity and innovation to be exploited.
Innovation can play a critical role in addressing socio-economic objectives of the country.
This is also associated with setting up new enterprises to provide the market with new product offering which can lead to job creation.
Many countries that have attained sound macro and micro economic development have embraced innovation.
It is for this reason the Southern Africa Innovation Support Programme (SAIS) is calling on Government to create an enabling environment for innovations in the country.
SAIS country coordinator William Mbuta said there is need to promote an innovative culture in the country to reduce economic challenges such as the depreciation of the Kwacha the country was faced with.
“Government should create an enabling environment for the private sector to engage in innovation, innovation can help the country to move from the challenges it is faced with at the moment.
“The things that are happening in our country are all linked to innovation even the depreciation of the Kwacha, we are not innovative enough to move out of the challenges,” he notes.
On the part of government, for entrepreneurs to succeed and achieve the much needed success, businesses should be born through innovation of new ideas and technologies to keep afloat in the industry.
Commerce Trade and Industry Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe said there is need to focus on innovation that will spur technological transformation and management structuring to generate innovative value addition of products that will bring significant change to society.
“Through innovation, a true entrepreneurship spirit will be ignited among SMEs in Zambia and ultimately, boost economic growth and development,” says Ms Mwanakatwe.
Government is committed to provide an enabling environment that will help foster favourable competition, innovation and growth for the benefit of the Zambian citizens.
In July, 2013, Zambia hosted the International Design Development Summit (IDDS) in Lusaka, with the common vision of finding solutions that give hope to some of the world’s poor communities.
The IDDS recognised that there are people with ideas and solutions to problems that affect the communities they live in.
Due to limited support and sometimes lack of self-confidence to push these ideas forward, the world has missed some key solutions to pressing challenges.
IDDS which saw a number of Zambian innovators attend, focused on working with these people, to produce technologies that not only improve lives but also offer opportunities for social entrepreneurship.
Under the theme Better Living through Collaborative Innovations, the summit identified prospective founders of solutions as a start-point
for the projects.
These founders then worked on design teams of people from diverse backgrounds to develop and improve design of their technologies.
The summit made use of the abundant resources found in the rural and peri-urban areas of Zambia.
The technology developers noted that they needed support to upscale their trial products.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) global
development laboratory, the International Development Innovation Network (IDIN) funded a grant dubbed ‘Pico’ which is managed by the
National Technology and Business Centre (NTBC) to help SMEs excel.
The Pico grant empowers a diverse, global network of innovators to design, develop, and disseminate low-cost technologies to improve the lives of people living in poverty.
The NTBC ran the first Pico grant disbursement in September of 2014. A total of 16 applications were received however, only 14 were approved for funding worth K18, 064.
The first cycle recorded some success as well as challenges. The major challenge was that the project promoters did not have the drive to complete the projects on time with some of them failing to even start working on the projects.
This was evident during monitoring and evaluation phase where most recipients were unable to justify their inability to meet the set targets.
In Zambia, there is an innovation and creativity gap in many professions.
This lack of innovation has resulted in the waste of resources that the country could greatly benefit from.
The continued exportation of mineral resources in their raw form is an issue that has been raised on countless times.
It is clear that a country like Zambia needs to embrace innovation in order to add value to the economy and improve the general welfare of the citizens. For comments, e-mail todennis_sokondhlovu@yahoo.com The Author is Manager – Business Development, Marketing and Public Relations at Zambia Open University.