As we remember and celebrate this special day when 28 years ago African hero Nelson Mandela walked out triumphantly from prison, we seldom remember what Madiba did for Africa, its image, its empowerment, and its prestige. Suddenly we had a respected global icon like never before. One whom Africans could be proud of, and whom the whole world respected. From World leaders and superstars to students and toddlers, everyone revered him, everyone listened to him, and everyone wanted to greet him. That kind of stature and leverage might not happen again soon on this continent. That is why I want to talk about the "Made in Africa" brand. While Mandela is more of a political African product, there is the economic aspect of the Africa brand that badly needs to be established and vitalized. The history of the industrial revolution is probably the simplest way to understand how innovation and technological advances have changed societies in developed countries and subsequently around the world as well. A few days ago I was reading about the Chinese model for economic growth. It was based on industrialization. They basically wanted to be able to produce everything they needed by themselves. Though African countries might not be able to afford the same strategy due to financial and other socio-political constraints, the basic format is the same in all countries that have seen solid economic success. Innovation, production and consumption. People get down to inventing new products. They then mobilize the means for mass production of the new product. And finally, they market it at an affordable cost. In many regions, the word "Inventor" is a real title, a real profession. A rare type of people who dedicate their lives and their focus on creating new technologies. New products that are intended to serve a real purpose in society. The laws of demand ensure that their innovations become commercially viable. Thus a new, profitable consumer product in the market, driving the overall national economic growth and playing it's part in uplifting the standards of living of people. In the process, there are people who have become famous because of the revolutionary aspect of their inventions which contunue to impact peoples lives. The solutions to most of our socio-economic problems are in innovation. That is why I took some time to reflect on a simple way to make both innovation and the commercialisation of ensuing new products an integral part of African economic structures. This is something that our continents leaders and policy makers should see as a strategic priority for the mid-term and especially for the long term robustness of our socio-economic fabric. While some people think that Africa can just sit back and leap frog economically by relying on developed countries to always come up with the technologies that we can then adopt once they become cheap enough, it is indeed clear that innovation is what our African economies lack most. It is the main reason for our continued dependence on imports of finished products while mostly exporting raw materials. That model and way of thinking must change. But the change does not come from simply importing industries. The head of the spear is local innovation. To put it simply, the industrial revolution first required inventors, then financiers to support viable inventions. Then the industries did the mass production. Today African economies have the basic structures in the form of possible multi-sectoral stake-holders (including Public-private partnerships). From investors to industries and financial institutions, all are on site within our economies. So what is lacking? Inventors. While everyone understands how important it is to take part in the bigger long term plot of developing the economy so as to make our populations more prosperous. However, there must be those who are willing to take the initial minimal risks to invest their time and money in any promising new endeavours. It is therefore common sense that revolutionary inventions are also a quite profitable venture when a new idea has potential for high demand. Government's therefore need to mobilize human and financial resources, particularly the youths and the entrepreneurs so as to not only produce innovation but also establish the mechanism for local direct investment in home-grown innovation. How do we do that? First we need to create the policy environment where innovation thrives. One of the problems we have is politicians pretending/acting knowledgeable with intellectual linguistics on topics like innovation, but actually are completely clueless on what actual action will sustainably unlock the country's potential and achieve such goals. We therefore have many highly educated empty heads posturing in conference English. Talking their way through life with the Oxford dictionary in their heads. In reality their productivity in terms of establishing the practical tennets that turn policy into reality are actually barely existent. Real visionary policies when implemented with persistence and determination over long periods of time are what bring change. I am talking about quantifiable policies that actually result in real-life products made by real people who first conduct real research and trials before availing real innovation for marketing, mass production, and even export where possible. For example, the world is facing new challenges where we must find new sources of clean energy and new efficient applications of these renewable energies so as to combat climate change and spare ourselves from dependance on depletable and highly polluting resources. It is clear that there is a problem. So there is a market for any meaningful affordable solutions to that problem. And even if some of our citizens might not know much about a subject like climate change, they will surely appreciate any innovation that solves their day-to-day problems, right? So how do we encourage our people to look into solving these problems? On this continent we unknowingly walk on resources that could be the solution to the world's energy storage problems or some other global innovation. But because we are not being innovative and conducting the required level of research, we will only start complaining when someone comes from Europe, discovers the use of such resources and starts making huge profits from something that was right under our feet as we walked to school, or to the market but simply didn't understand anything about its use and existence. Why? It is therefore only through an adventurous research spirit that we get to first discover, then own any resources and the ensuing innovations. For the record, most of the geological studies in Africa were conducted by colonialists in the 19th and 20th century. Today we should have already established an updated inventory of all deposits plus their tonnage estimates. Research plus the advances in technology widely available today make it possible to find undiscovered new resources and new purposes for other pre-existing minerals. However innovation is possible in all sectors and all industries. From chemistry to agriculture equipment, water & sanitation, telecommunications, software applications, hardware components, energy storage, perpetual motion generators, medicine, construction & road surfaces, transportation, chemistry, home appliances, conversion of hydrogen fuels from water or air...etc. All these are area's for innovation. Unfortunately it is all mostly happening elsewhere. Not in Africa. So we need to join the globalized bandwagon and the effort to positively impact our own people if not the world. Guess which demographic category is driving innovation in the most advanced societies? Its the youth. We therefore need to harness all that creative energy. Some of us are thinking about the practical steps and therefore know it can be done fairly easily. While the synical might always want to mock and pull down any promising initiative from this side of the world, Africa has to start seeing itself as part of the global future. No matter how small, we have to start somewhere in developing from our own initiative, the respectability and therefore the marketability of an innovative "Made in Africa" brand.
Written by Hussein Lumumba Amin 11/02/2018 Kampala, UGANDA.
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