3rd SG13 Regional Workshop for Africa on “ITU-T
Standardization Challenges for Developing Countries
Working for a Connected Africa”
(Livingstone, Zambia, 23-24 February 2015)
Zambia Standardization: The Road Ahead
Shuller Habeenzu,
Director, ITMConsult,
beenzu@itmconsultzm.com
Presentation Outline
• Introduction
• Objectives
• Standardisation & Innovation
• What is demand side innovation
• What does it mean for standards
• State of Play in Zambia
• Zambia - The Road Ahead
• Challenges & Opportunities
• Q&A
Background
• Growing global consensus that ICTs have a positive and significant
impact on productivity, economic growth and social well-being
[Mansell, 2014]
• Empirical evidence suggests that a 10% increase in ICT investment
translates into a higher productivity growth of 0.5 to 0.6% on average
[Waverman et al, 2006]
• ICT productivity and growth effect is not only significant and positive,
but also increasing over time [Kazt and Koutroumpis, 2014]
• ICTs also have to be embedded in complementary organisational
investments [Kretschmer, 2012
Problem Statement
• ICTs’ contribution to economic growth is significantly smaller for
countries with low penetration (or low income countries) than for
countries with high penetration.
• Low ICT diffusion has “a high economic cost” in terms of unrealised
economic growth which is the higher the lower the penetration rate
due to lack of telecommunications infrastructure compared to a high
income country [Gruber and Koutroumpis, 2010]
• ICT diffusion must achieve critical threshold levels of diffusion which
can then trigger off additional benefits (World Bank ICT Strategy,
2012)
The Challenge
• How to identify key policy instruments
and leverage feedback mechanisms to
accelerate the penetration and
adoption of ICTs to achieve the critical
thresholds.
Standardisation
Hypothesis
• Demand side innovations policy and
standardisation key driving factors for
accelerated diffusion and adoption of
ICTs.
Innovation
Standards
Innovation and Productivity
• Innovation is widely recognized as one of the essential drivers of
successful business and a key contributor to a nation’s productivity
and economic and social development.
• Finding ways of fostering innovation is a central concern for both
forward-thinking companies and governments.
Definition : Innovation
Schumpeter: the introduction of a
new good; new method of
production; the opening up of a new
market; the use if a new source of
supply of raw materials or new
ways of organising industries
Dosi: the search for, and the
discovery, experimentation,
development, imitation, and
adoption of new products, new
production processes and new
organizational set-ups
Rogers: an idea, practice, or object that is perceived to
be new by the an individual or other unit of adoption
Demand-side innovation
• Demand-side policies can be defined as:
• “all public measures to induce innovations and/or speed up diffusion of innovation
through increasing the demand for innovations, defining new functional
requirements for products and services or better articulating demand”2
• Definition – Demand Side Innovation
• “a set of public measures to increase the demand for innovations, to improve the
conditions for the uptake of innovations or to improve the articulation of demand in
order to spur innovations and allow their diffusion (Edler, 2007)”.
• Demand-side innovation policies aim at
• addressing barriers affecting the market introduction of innovations (responsive
demand) and
• at the ability to define and signal new functional needs to producers (triggering
demand)
Demand, Innovation and standards
• Demand is a major potential source of innovation, yet the critical role
of demand as a key driver of innovation has still to be recognised in
government policy
SOCIAL POLICY
Innovation
Standards
• Increase market
• Reduce production cost
• Public safety
Recursive interdependence between innovation and standardisation
Objective: raising awareness of the benefits of standardisation in the innovation process;
Innovation promoting functions of standards in
public procurement
• Reduction in costs
• Interoperability with existing infrastructure and transition to new
technologies
• Pushing completion intensity and hence innovative pressure
• Reduction of risk of lock-in
• Innovation diffusion through implementation of new standards
referenced in tenders
• Spill-over of innovation to the private sector
ICT, Innovation and Standardisation
• ICT promotes innovation and can trigger fundamental economic
transformation
• Potential for use of ICT for innovation across the economy and
promote the growth of IT-Based services
• Promotion of demand driven innovation strategies and policies,
• but little focus on standardisation as a tool to accelerate speed and breadth of
diffusion of innovation technologies, especially in social sector
Objective: stimulate delivery of ICT goods and
services by using demand side innovation
• Use public policy to foster demand through:
• Public procurement
• Regulatory framework: better enforcement (of standards)
• Standardisation awareness in the public sector
• Complimentary measures: clusters, etc
Zambia Competitiveness Index
Weaknesses in its innovation
system
• low share of its population that
graduates from secondary
education (139th)
• Low capacity to fully leverage
ICTs to boost innovation (93rd)
• Low population’s online
participation (112th)despite its
• fairly robust political and
regulatory environment
Source: World Economic Competiveness Report 2014-2015
Zambia ICT e-readiness
Networked Readiness
E-readiness
Source: World Economic Competiveness Report 2014-2015
Challenges
• Factor (extraction)-based economy where penetration of ICTs is slow
• Dual economy in which SMEs hold the perception that standards are
more relevant to large enterprises/big business mostly foreign
companies and not relevant to local ICT business
• Very small SMME sector – demand for knowledge is weak (standards)
• Meeting standards requirements can be a constraint for business to
innovate
• Lack of human (technical) and financial resources to fully exploit
standards among SMEs
• High taxation hampering increased usage and sector growth
Level of commitment in standardisation
Proprietary
Follower
Contributor
Leader
Demand side innovation in public sector
The Road Ahead
• Need for a paradigm shift leading to demand-side innovation policies
to support:
• Innovation-sympathetic regulatory framework and procedures
• Accelerated ICT diffusion and widespread usage through education and
health programs
• Use standards for ICT performance measurement as well as specifications
• ITU to assist member states to integrate innovation in regulatory
policies
Q&A
Shuller Habeenzu,
Director, ITMConsult,
beenzu@itmconsultzm.com