Understanding Policy and Institutional Innovations to Harness Knowledge for the Realization of the MDGs in Africa

Abstract

Evidences from international publications on the MDGs have shown that knowledge, experience and the know-how of fast tracking the MDGs abound2. Africa is endowed with indigenous and local knowledge; however, such innovations are characterized with information asymmetry which weakens the widespread application of innovative ideas that could have transformed its economic and development landscape. Due to information asymmetry, we often prefer to look for innovations that are either inferior or of the same standards from distant locations but not easily adaptable to the African context. Due to the lack of a sharing network, most innovative ideas from the region have become localized and in some instances, the indigenous innovators adopt an indifference attitude, mostly leading to indirect restriction of the innovation, among the innovators andproducers3. The lack of network for sharing innovative ideas has resulted into deficit in the incremental innovation progress in the continent.

A review of experiences across the continent has shown that new body of knowledge is being built around policies and institutional innovations that are driving progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The emerging evidence tends to suggest that achieving the MDGs in the region requires a substantial reorientation of development policies and institutions to focus on the use of new and established processes and practices that have propelled progress across the various Goals and countries in Africa.

To be able to capture relevant changes taking place on the implementation of MDGs related interventions, innovations are looked at in three broad categories: in terms of policy orientation that have created conducive environment for progress, business process (covering marketing, financing and operational issues) and products or the service (focusing on organizational and social impact) – the three ps: policy, process and product. Three main broad areas are emphasized in addressing the issue of innovations on the MDGs: the goals on poverty reduction, education and health. They focus on one area each where the region is doing very well (education) and lagging behind (health goals) and having a moderate progress (poverty).