BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN UNIVERSITY, INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT
IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT: THE POLYCENTRIC APPROACH
Dr. S. R. AKINOLA
Department of Public Administration,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
e-mail:srakinola@yahoo.com; sakinola@oauife.edu.ng
Mobile: 234-803-407-5110; 234-803-424-3377
PAPER PRESENTED AT THE 5th GLOBELICS INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE OF THE PROJECT ON “GLOBELICS-RUSSIA-2007:
Regional and National Innovation Systems for Development,
Competitiveness and Welfare: the Government-Academia-Industry
Partnership (theory, problems, practice and prospects)”, Saratov, Volga
Region, Russia, Saratov State Technical University, September 19-23, 2007.
1
BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN UNIVERSITY, INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT
IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT: THE POLYCENTRIC APPROACH
Dr. S. R. AKINOLA
Department of Public Administration,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
e-mail:srakinola@yahoo.com; sakinola@oauife.edu.ng
Mobile: 234-803-407-5110; 234-803-424-3377
ABSTRACT
In spite of the existence of abundant development potentials (human resources, natural
resources and scientific knowledge) across Africa coupled with several reforms declarations and
commitments made by African leaders over the last four decades, development is still a mirage
in the continent. Using Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, otherwise
known as new institutionalism, this paper found that universities, governments and industries in
Africa are not interacting. Innovations and new ideas generated by African scholars end on the
shelves after they are used for promotion. There is little to no incentives on the part of African
governments to translate these innovations to reality through political actions and industrial
efforts; hence, the people could not benefit. The paper suggested how to bridge the gaps
between these development players by designing African Development Brain-Box (ADBB) and
appropriate framework that will enable the key development players to operate in synergy.
ADBB adopted polycentricity and adaptation strategy in pragmatically taking knowledge to
African streets to ensure redemptive development in the continent.
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INTRODUCTION
This paper attempts at bridging the gap between university, industry and government in
Africa. This gap has been responsible for developmental crises that have pervaded the continent
for several decades. The gap is predicated upon the system of administration that was
bequeathed to the continent by the colonialists and adopted by successive post-colonial African
leaders. The system has been excessively centralized, separating African leaders from the rest of
African peoples. The state-dominated and state-driven economy has no mechanism and
inspiration to rally the citizenry, who are in the informal sector around developmental projects.
Consequently, several reforms’ declarations and commitments made by African leaders over the
last four decades cum the existence of abundant development potentials (human resources,
natural resources and scientific knowledge) across the continent could not produce expected
development in the continent. The problem is largely a case of institutional dilemma as there is
an absence of appropriate institutional mechanisms that could motivate African peoples to work
together as partners in development. This institutional dilemma confirms the problem of
“disconnect” in the continent. As long as stakeholders in development are not operating in
synergy, development is forgone.
For instance, while innovative ideas are generated by African scholars in several
disciplines, there have not been sufficient incentives on the part of African governments to
harness these potentials. Rather, African governments, industrialists and to certain extent, the
private sector patronized imported technology and development paradigm which are usually at
variance with African realities. Consequently, these three key development players - African
university, African government and African industry/private sector - operate on parallel lines as
against collegial interactions within development arena. The high rate of unemployment among
university graduates in Africa and heavy reliance on outside expertise by African governments
suggest a continent divided against itself. Other factors that invariably account for development
crises in Africa include: the inculcation of non-adaptive education; relegation of African mother
tongues as modes of instruction in African educational systems and developmental process;
importation of technology; stagnation of agricultural sector and dependency on minerals; high
level of post-harvest loss due to lack of storage devices; and reliance on nature for agricultural
activities.
In spite of these problems, this paper identifies development potentials, which include:
natural resources potentials, innovations potentials and institutional potentials. Unfortunately,
3
these development potentials are largely untapped and Africa, thus, becomes a dumping ground
for goods that it could produce locally. Predictably, instead of development and enhancement of
citizen’s welfare; poverty, hunger, conflicts and sickness are heightened across the continent. If
it is true that university education and generation of knowledge are at the heart of development
and African scholars have potentials, why is it that African continent still lags behind other
regions in the area of development in spite of the existence of over 250 universities in Africa? Is
it not the time to begin rethinking new development paradigm that is capable of bridging the
gap between the major three development players in Africa? The puzzle raised by this paper is
whether African societies are really capable or not of attaining redemptive development from
reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their progress on
accident and force dictated by whims and caprices of foreign financial institutions.
The failure of the past development paradigm, state-centered efforts and market
economy requires a rethink on alternative ways of addressing African socioeconomic, political
and technological problems. Market forces alone are incapable of addressing these problems;
social capital plays an indispensable role as well. Since it is difficult for individuals to change
certain exogenous variables (physical environment in particular), individuals usually adopt and
adapt institutions based on their life exigencies. This is where Institutional Analysis and
Development (IAD) framework becomes relevant for sustainable development in Africa. The
specific variation used in this paper draws from the IAD framework developed over the years by
Vincent Ostrom and Elinor Ostrom and colleagues at the Workshop in Political Theory and
Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Institutional analysis helps us to better
understand how individuals within communities, organizations and societies craft rules and
organize the rule-ordered relationships in which they live their lives. This approach to scientific
inquiry, often referred to as “new institutionalism,” is within the broader tradition of political
economy.
Using IAD framework, this paper employs empirical data to discuss repetitive missing
links between and among the three key development players in Africa. It also attempts at
designing African Development Brain-Box (ADBB) that relies on polycentricity in synergising
the efforts of the key stakeholders in harnessing development potentials Polycentricity and
adaptation strategies help in matching the output/product of scholars and industries with the
needs of the grassroots. In order words, the supply of scholars and industries are related to the
demand of the grassroots. This strategy, as a bottom-up development strategy, has been proven
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and tested in Irepodun Local Government area of Osun State, Nigeria by the author between
2005 and 2006. The ripple effects of the experiment have attracted the adoption of the strategies
by the Osun State Government of Nigeria in economic self-reliance, food security, employment
generation and poverty reduction. Though the practical application of these concepts is still on,
the response of the participants reinforces the confidence reposed by me in these ideas as a
possible way that could enable Africa to experience a passage to a developmental state. The
argument of this paper is that it is the needs of the people that should determine the roles of
universities and activities of industries.
This paper is organised into six. The first part is the introduction, while the second
section presents the theoretical framework upon which the paper is anchored. The third section
discusses disconnect and African development crises as manifested in uncoordinated manners
the stakeholders in development operate. The section discusses how alienation affects African
scholars, African politicians and African practitioners in the way they conceptualize
development in the continent. The fourth section examines the potentials and capabilities of
African scholars in relation to their communities, especially how they can use their knowledge
to enhance the welfare of the people. The section also uses the results of empirical survey to
demonstrates how local people have positively responded to the disappointment they met from
the state through community initiatives. Section five designs African Development Brain-Box
(ADBB) that relies on polycentricity in synergizing the efforts of the key stakeholders in
development. Conclusion is drawn in section six.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In order to contextualize the line of analysis in this paper, Public Choice Theory (PCT)
is adopted. Vincent Ostrom, having recognized the problems imbedded in Orthodox Public
Administration, used the theory of Public Goods to reinvent a theory of democratic
administration, which is gaining currency in the literature of Public Administration. This has
been found useful by the Public Choice scholars in the development of an alternative
institutional paradigm by calling attention to the self-governing and self organizing capabilities
of the people. Though this alternative paradigm was originally conceived within the context of
American experience, it has become a potent alternative effectively employed by some African
scholars in their works (George Ayittez 1991; Dele Olowu 1999, 2006; Bamidele Ayo
2002). These scholars have confirmed the resilience and effectiveness of institutions designed
5
and managed by the people. Those community institutions are found to have performed better
than state run institutions, and that community based institutional arrangements readily meet the
yearnings and aspirations of the people in delivering goods and services which the state
institutions have failed to deliver efficiently and effectively.
The PCT recognizes the fundamental defects in the centralist model of development and
the persistence failure of the state to meet the collective yearnings and aspirations of the
citizenry. The Public Choice Scholars have consistently advocated “de-emphasizing the state as
the sole focus of political theory and policy analysis.” The position of the Public Choice
Scholars is that effective governance and meaningful socio-economic development can best be
attained in human societies through systems of democratic administration. The main thrust of
democratic administration is the people and a people-managed system of governance. It is based
on the assumption of eligibility of every individual to participate in the conduct of public
affairs.
PCT suggests that the failure of the past development paradigm and state-centered
efforts requires a rethink on alternative ways of addressing African socioeconomic, political and
technical problems. Since it is difficult for individuals to change certain exogenous variables
(physical environment in particular), individuals usually adopt and adapt institutions based on
their life exigencies. This is where Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, an
offshoot of PCT, becomes relevant for sustainable development in Africa. The specific variation
used in this paper draws from the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework,
shown generically in Figure 1, developed over the years by Vincent Ostrom and Elinor Ostrom
and colleagues at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University,
Bloomington, USA. According to Sawyer (2005:3), institutional analysis helps us to better
understand how individuals within communities, organizations and societies craft rules and
organize the rule-ordered relationships in which they live their lives. This approach to scientific
inquiry, often referred to as “new institutionalism,” is within the broader tradition of political
economy.
Broadly defined, institutions are the prescriptions (rules) that humans use to organize all
forms of repetitive and structured interactions including those within families, neighborhoods,
markets, firms, sports leagues, churches, private associations, and governments at all scales.
Individuals interacting within rule-structured situations face choices regarding the actions and
strategies they take, leading to consequences for themselves and for others. Institutions are
6
artifactual constraints human beings develop as artisans to regulate social conduct. They may
facilitate or militate against stable relationships that make interdependence possible and
productive for most individuals in the political economy. Institutions are essentially contained
in a shared language to specify the action that are required, prohibited, or permitted, and the
sanctions authorized against rule-infractions.
Exogenous Variables or Context
Biophysical/Material
Conditions
Action Arena
Action
Situations
Attributes of
Community
Patterns of
Interactions
Participants
Rules-in Use
Evaluative
Criteria
Cybernetics
Outcomes
Fig. 1. A Framework for Institutional Analysis.
Source: Adapted from E. Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1994, p. 37.
As shown in fig. 1, institutions are crafted by participants within action arenas in
response to their particular exogenous variables. This normally starts when participants within
an action arena respond to exogenous variables or context (biophysical/material conditions, cultural and other attributes of a community, and rules-in-use) and when outcomes are positive the
participants will increase their commitment to maintain the structure as it is or shift to another
set of exogenous variables and then on and on like that. However, if outcomes are negative,
participants might raise some questions on why the outcomes are negative. They might then
7
move to a different level and change their institutions to produce another set of interactions and,
consequently, different outcomes.
In order to further explain the diagram in fig. 1, an example of community of pastoralists
and farmers in arid environment is illustrated. The pastoralists and farmers need water for their
cattle and farmland respectively. Their biophysical/material condition is lack of water while
action situation is the need to make water available for their survival. But they have to make
rules to ensure equitable distribution of water to all members of the community. However, the
way and manner rules are made is very crucial. If rules making is dominated by few people while
others are at the periphery of decision making, then the outcomes of interactions will not be
beneficial to all members since the marginalized group will not understand the rationale for the
rules and, therefore, may not cooperate. But if all members of the community are involved in rule
making, the task of monitoring of rules compliance will be the joint responsibility of all and they
will be more inclined to ensure the success of the water project since they all depend on the
water for their survival. The community would also be concerned on how the water can be
sustainable for their continued existence. This type of self-organizing arrangement can be applied
to other human activities such as cooperative society, provision and production of community
project and public goods.
To understand institutions, according to E. Ostrom (2005:3), one needs to know what they
are, how and why they are crafted and sustained, and what consequences they generate in diverse
settings. Understanding institutions is a process of learning what they do, how and why they work,
how to create or modify them, and eventually how to convey that knowledge to others.
The opportunities and constraints that participants face in any particular situation, the
information they obtain, the benefits they obtain or are excluded from, and how they reason about
the situation are all affected by the rules or absence of rules that structure the situation. Further, the
rules affecting one situation are themselves crafted by individuals interacting in deeper-level
situations. It is important that rules ‘crafters’ understand the interplay between actions and
outcomes as the duo interlink. On the other hand, if individuals who are crafting and modifying
rules do not understand how particular combinations of rules affect actions and outcomes in a
particular ecological and cultural environment, rule changes may produce unexpected and, at times,
disastrous outcomes.
The ways and manners African leaders exercise leadership prerogatives in decision
making at the exclusion of other stakeholders in development shows that the house is divided
8
against itself. The elite (public officials and scholars) are divided against themselves and the elite
as a group is separated from the grassroots. This is the major dilemma confronting Africa as a
continent. As long as there is no common thought between the leaders and the led, it is greatly
doubtful if the peoples of Africa can collectively deal with their exogenous variables.
In the opening paragraph of The Federalist Papers, Hamilton ([1788] 1961:33) posed
the fundamental puzzle in human societies, “whether societies of men are really capable or not
of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever
destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” If we understand
society as a system of human cooperation, this Hamiltonian puzzle can be formulated as two
questions: Are human beings capable of cooperating with one another to organize a free,
peaceful, and prosperous society? If the answer is affirmative, under what conditions can they
cooperate to achieve such a goal?
Public choice theories suggest that individuals under certain institutional arrangements
and shared norms are capable of organizing and sustaining cooperation that advances the
common interest of the group in which they belong (see, for example, E. Ostrom, 1990). This
line of thought recognizes that human beings can organize and govern themselves based on
appropriate institutional arrangements and mutual agreements in a community of understanding.
This is the fundamental of Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. IAD
believes in institutional arrangement designed by people who cooperate based on rules and
constitution of their choice; and are thereby able to resolve socio-economic and political
problems which other people (external to their conditions) are not capable of doing for them.
The peoples of Africa engage in myriads of socio-economic and political activities
which constitute the drivers of development but, unfortunately, they are neither properly
documented nor recognized by official statistics in Africa. The questions that come to mind
include: How are diverse peoples of Africa coping economically and socially? What kind of
incentives favour trusted institutional arrangement among the people? How do people resolve
their conflicts?
If we agree that institutions matter in terms of their influence on cooperation, then selforganizing and self-governing arrangements that diverse peoples of Africa have adopted in
cooperating mutually in responding to their common problems are imperatives as the first
condition to be met for the attainment of good governance, viable democracies and sustainable
development in Africa. The kind of incentives that promote cooperation, mutual relationships,
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and collective action among these communities of individuals in Africa is the second condition
that needs to be met before diverse peoples of Africa can cross the hurdles in their passage to
mutually productive ways of life, democratic society and development.
In spite of the high enthusiasm of African leaders in the adoption of one-size-fits-all
approach within the last four decades across Africa, reality has confirmed Alex de Tocqueville’s
assertion that: no two communities are ever the same and people always bear some marks of
their origin. Circumstances of birth and growth affect all the rest of their careers (Tocqueville,
1966). Ecological and cultural variations need to be taken into consideration in conceptualizing
development strategies and policy formulation. In order to break away from the yoke of neocolonialism, Africans need to first pay attention to indigenous and endogenous political
economy structure and second, extract governance principles which can be modified to suit the
present day realities.
Despite the shortcoming of the state institutions in responding to the yearnings and
aspirations of the citizenry, diverse peoples of Africa are still surviving through several coping
strategies and self-organizing arrangements in the same areas where the state has faltered. The
fundamental questions include the following: How are the people surviving regarding basic
needs like food, housing, clothing, health, education, transport, security, etc.? What lessons can
we learn from peoples’ creativities and the adaptive strategies they evolved over the years in
addressing problems of daily existence? These are some of the questions that African scholars
need to answer through empirical surveys in their various disciplines. Findings from such
studies will help us come to terms with the resilience and robustness of African peoples as well
as their vulnerability, exclusion and marginalization. This will produce a new body of
knowledge that is necessary for decisions that can positively affect the lives of African people.
If we want to find solution to the persistent socio-economic and political crises in
Africa, we must pay close attention to the self-governing arrangements that diverse African
people designed by themselves to confront their common problems. Understanding these is very
important because whatever structures the people have built and sustained over the years are
what we need to work upon or filter in order to ascertain what to modify, adopt or reject. It is
these people-designed and people-oriented structures that can be regarded as building blocks for
the emergence of self-organizing arrangements capable of reconstituting order from the bottomup in Africa.
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Scholars of African development then have an important challenge to think carefully
about what works as opposed to what does not work if the individual in Africa will be helped in
taking advantage of self-governing lessons learned in local units for political and economic
transformation of the continent. The study of self-governance and human capabilities in a range
of human endeavours in African societies should be of particular interest to African scholars to
explore research puzzles of mutual interest and to cooperate in ways that are mutually
productive and rewarding. For Africa to be self-governed, diverse and multiple centres of
human activities that African peoples have established should be of significant interest to
African scholars.
These multiple centres of human activities resemble what Elinor and Vincent Ostrom
(2003:12) describe as polycentricity. Polycentricity simply means a system where citizens are
able to organize, not just one, but multiple governing authorities, as well as private
arrangements, at different scales. Each unit may exercise considerable independence to make
and enforce rules within a circumscribed scope of authority for a specified geographical area.
In a polycentric system, some units are general-purpose governments, whereas others may be
highly specialized. Self-organized resource governance systems, in such a system, may be
special districts, private associations, or part of local government. These are nested in several
layers of general-purpose governments that also provide civil equity as well as criminal courts.
Polycentricity as an institutional arrangement enhances the capacity of citizens to talk,
discuss, dialogue and engage in contestation in an assembly, whether at local or national level.
It deals with multiple units of governments (multi-layers and multi-centers) and a way of
working with one another among citizens with complementary arrangements for formulating,
using, monitoring, judging, and enforcing rules. With the experience of the United States of
America it is impossible to have federalism without covenantal arrangement with reference to
particular problems. Each problem will require different arrangements between towns and
cities; between local councils and between states on different public goods and services - roads,
schools, health, etc. and economic activities. It is also described as nested enterprises (see Elinor
Ostrom 2005).
It is within this theoretical framework that socio-economic, technological and
governance crises in Africa will be analysed.
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THE DISCONNECT AND AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT CRISES
The major key sectors that constitute the development of any society are government,
university, industry and agriculture, while the key players in these sectors are governments’
officials, scholars, industrialists and farmers respectively. These groups should of necessity
interact within socio-economic and political action arenas. The bane of African governance and
development is that these stakeholders that are the key players and participants within
development arenas have not been interacting; hence, there is no collective response to
exogenous variables that they needed to deal with. Rather, they operate more or less along
parallel lines; individual player has been responding to exogenous variables in a disjointed and
adjusted incrementalistic manner. Consequently, development potentials that are associated
with collective action within the action arena have been eluding Africa as a continent.
Despite the driving force of globalization and the positive responses of several countries
in technological innovations, transforming the production and storage of food, the movement
and trading in goods, employment generation and access to and consumption of goods, the
converse is the case for Africa. The continent has become a dumping ground for imported
machines, food and political ideology. In spite of the long history of universities in Africa and
its abundant natural resources, the continent is still a little more than a non-starter, especially in
food security, technological development, employment generation and conflict resolutions.
With several potentials that are prerequisites for development, Africa is one of the poorest
continents in the world that constantly relies on importation of daily needs that it could produce
locally.
The United Nations mid-year World Economic Situation and Prospect report found that
growth in African is likely to average six percent in 2007, compared with world gross domestic
product growth of 3.4 per cent. But growth was still largely based on raw materials, making it
extremely vulnerable to exogenous factors such as weather conditions, terms of trade and aid
flows (The Nation, Wednesday, May 30, 2007, p. 19). How do we explain the situation in
Botswana, a country with large deposit of diamond but without a single industry to process the
solid mineral? The mineral is exported to be processed abroad and then imported to the country
for usage. This is slavery technology consumption. Invariably, growth is not benefiting the
people as industries that process raw materials (which should generate employment) are not in
Africa but in Europe and America. In essence, what we have is growth without development.
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Though local economic development (LED) was successful in Europe and America, its
adoption and application in South Africa has not yielded expected result as the country’s rate of
unemployment has not significantly reduced unemployment at 25.5%. This has been the case in
spite of the country’s economic growth of above 5 per cent for the past three years (The Nation,
Wednesday, May 30, 2007, p. 19). With uncontrolled urbanisation in South Africa and the
growth of shacks and informal settlements, the country is likely to experience serious and more
complicated socio-economic and political problems in the next one decade if the country fails to
adopt institutional mechanism that is capable of bridging the gaps between elite leadership and
the people and consequently reversing the trend of rural urban drift. The argument is that until
African countries take collegial decisions to deal with their exogenous variables, development
in the continent is foregone.
This paper demonstrates that the people of Africa are by no means less intellectually
endowed than their counterparts in developed nations. This reinforces the notion that the socioeconomic and political crises ravaging and pervading African continent are not consequent on
the fact that the operators of African governments are black people. The problem is that of
institutional dilemma. Under normal circumstances, government through its political actions
should initiate development by throwing challenges on scholars, who should in turn, through
knowledge generated, guide government by using the results of their applied and adaptive
research. However, considering the domination of the polity by military and authoritarian
civilian leaders in the last five decades, Africans could not work together as colleagues.
Consequently, African state has faltered in several areas of development.
As a result of this furlon hope, young people (between 15 and 24 years old) accounted
for 63% of the jobless in sub-Saharan Africa in 2003. Reported unemployment in Africa
averages 10% but unofficially the figures are much higher, with some countries experiencing
unemployment rates of more than 40%. In Botswana, 43% of young people were officially
unemployed in 1998. In Zambia, 60% of youths and 30% of adults are jobless (Mutume
2006:6). More than 50% of young people in Sierra Leone still lack proper work. Liberia faces a
similar predicament and is seeking ways to keep its 100,000 young ex-fighters economically
engaged. Zimbabwe’s rate of unemployment is around 80 percent1, while that of Kenya is 75
percent2. According to record, 375,000 graduates were unemployed in the last five years in
1
2
http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=2457&cat=1
http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070617/CITIZEN_01/106170300/-1/CITIZEN
13
Nigeria3. Of all the unemployed in South Africa, 70 percent of them are young people (The
Star4, June 18, 2007). Though South Africa had achieved much in the last 13 years, poverty and
unemployment remained a crisis5.
How do we explain the situations in countries like Nigeria and South Africa where it is
believed that economy is working very well when there are problems of unemployment?
Economic boom whose fruits are not enjoyed by the majority of the people is not an indication
of development. It has been pointed out that this high level of unemployment among young
men and women in Africa is a “ticking time bomb.” (Mutume 2006:7). Invariably,
unemployment in Africa has accounted for many Africans that migrated illegally to Europe
regardless of harsh conditions – hunger, malnourishment, adverse weather and even death
(Akinsola 2007:51; Popham 2007:9).
Zimbabwe, once the food basket of Southern Africa, has been reeling with chronic food
shortages, high unemployment rate6, chronic shortages of fuel and foreign currency and
economic crisis that has produced the world’s highest inflation rate of above 3,700 percent 7.
Similarly, Mombasa, Kenya’s second-largest has 6,000 street kids and children as young as 5
and 8 are used as prostitutes. There is no clean drinking water, and one out of every four people
has HIV or AIDS8.
These harsh socioeconomic conditions in Africa often triggered industrial conflicts
between governments and workers with some other adverse consequences. For example, a five
day strike embarked upon by petroleum workers in Nigeria in June 2007 cost the country a
total of N200 billion (Daily Independent Wednesday, June 20, 2007, p. A4). Why should
government allow such sensitive issues to degenerate into strike? The public servants’ strike in
South Africa dragged on for over two weeks.
It is important at this juncture to dig, a little, into the history of African educational
system. Onyeonoru (2004:198) highlights the persistent and recurrent industrial face-off
between the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) and the Federal
Government of Nigeria in 1992, 1995, 1996, 2001 and 2003, and links the crises indirectly to
IMF/World Bank agenda. The Bretton Woods Institutions argue that African countries do not
3 http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=81379
4 http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=vn20070617233310200C420149
5 http://www.southafrica.info/doing_business/businesstoday/businessnews/978704.htm
6 http://www.afrol.com/articles/25793
7 http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=2457&cat=1
8 http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070617/CITIZEN_01/106170300/-1/CITIZEN
14
need universities since their brilliant students could always embark on their university training
abroad – in Europe and America (Awopetu 1998). Ade-Ajayi (2001:2) also confirms the
heretical idea of the World Bank. Such a pessimistic view has profound implications for good
governance, democracy and development in Africa. There is also the claim by the Bank, “that
the reduction of the number of universities/polytechnics will help to channel resources to
intermediate level technical manpower development which is lacking in much of Africa”
(Olukoshi 1998:33). It is as a result of this stance of the IMF/World Bank that most African
governments consistently reduced their funding of education.
According to Assie-Lumumba (2006:60), governments’ investment in higher education
in Africa is on the decline as expenditure per student in higher education as a percent of Gross
National Investment (GNI) per capita has drastically fallen from 1490.8 percent in 1965, to
820.8 percent in 1980, to just 107.2 percent in 1997. In Nigeria, for example, budgetary
allocation to education was reduced from 13% to 11.12% in 1999, then to 6.9% in 2001, 5.6%
in 2002, 1.83% in 2003 (Onyeonoru 2004:199) and then it was increased to 12% in 2004
(Markham 2004 cited in Bello 2005:17) due to ASUU struggles. This is far short of UNESCO’s
standard that mandates that nations spend a minimum of 26.0% of national budget on education.
What could have accounted for such a landslide in the funding of higher education in
Africa? Is it lack of wealth in Africa? No. Collier and Gunning (1997) and Mkandawire (2005)
point out that Africa is probably a net exporter of capital with 40 per cent of privately held
wealth invested outside Africa and that in relation to workforce, capital flight from Africa has
been much higher than in other developing country groups. In this vein, Soludo (20069)
suggests that it is Africa's capital, with about 40 percent of its non-land wealth held outside
Africa that must lead the way for Africa’s sustained growth and transformation. Such wealth
should be invested in education and specific research that could enable Africa to experience
technological breakthrough in development. This is an area that requires urgent attentions of
African leaders.
In spite of all these obstacles confronting African universities, African scholars have
mustered intellectual strength to develop several ideas (as will be discussed later in this paper).
However, many years after independence, with 250 universities10 and several polytechnics,
there is a fundamental question that has to do with how to make African universities problem
9
http://allafrica.com/stories/200606020343.html
Assie-Lumumba (2006) shows that the number of universities in Africa has increased from a very small
number before 1960 to 250 in 2000.
10
15
solving through effective synergistic interactions between these higher institutions, African
governments and industrialists. The university is one of the highest protecting power of all
knowledge and science of fact, and principle of inquiry for discovery with the aim of raising the
intellectual tone of the society. The major goals of universities are to teach, conduct research
and act as consultants to governments and non-governmental organizations in developmental
needs and projects so as to contribute directly and effectively to national development. For
instance, while some innovations are produced by agricultural and food scientists as well as
agricultural engineers in some African universities, peasant farmers have not been able to
benefit because African governments and industrialists have no priority for local technology,
which is capable of resolving the lingering problem of low agricultural yields and post-harvest
losses through process and product innovations (Akinola, 2002:73).
If we do not take deliberate decision, nothing will happen. Good governance and
development are not easily come by except a lot of efforts are spent in bringing them to reality.
Even angels will not bring development to our door step except human beings fufil God’s
conditions of techno-political economy. If African scholars in this 21st Century are still being
controlled by colonial intellectual syndrome, then development is forgone. Colonial intellectual
legacy still prevails as attentions of scholars are directed towards foreign ideas. When
opportunities exist to go abroad, scholars do not come back – brain drain.
There are certain issues that need to be discussed on African scholars, African
politicians and African practitioners. Alienation is one factor that affects the primary players
(African politicians and practitioners as well as African scholars) across Africa as this makes
them to be unrealistic in the way they conceptualize development. To them, it seems everything
from developed nations has more value than what is associated with Africa.
(1) African Politicians and African Practitioners (bureaucrats and technocrats)
The high rate of corruption, political violence, bloody electoral system and political
assassinations confirmed that there are some fundamental problems entrenched in African
polity. It is on record that Nigeria and other developing African countries lose over 40 per cent
16
of their annual budgets to corruption11. This corruption tends to insulate public officials from
African realities and make them to live as foreigners within their continent. They are alienated
from their fellow citizens in all ramifications.
African practitioners in ministries and government parastatals are links between the
general public (recipients of public services) and political office holders. These groups of
people need special training to give them new orientation that can make them operate as
Africans. It is, however, sad to note that most training programmes organized for these public
officials in most parts of Africa trained them out of contact with reality at the grassroots. When
engineers are busy negotiating contracts and attending meetings every day, where will they get
time to work at the field? They only go to the fields to inspect completed projects. What are
they going to inspect when concrete is already mixed, slabs and pillars are already cast by
contractors? How can they ascertain the quality of gravels, strength of materials and the overall
quality of the job done by contractors?
The consequence of this is that basic public services the individual needs are poorly
provided by the state. These inefficient public ministries, agencies and parastatals were large
scale bureaucratic structures that were patterned after colonial traditions. My experience and
interactions with public officials in Nigeria and Ghana, over the years, confirmed that training
public officials in first class hotels such as Sheraton, Hilton, Five Stars, etc. contrasted with
grassroots realities. Second, most of these officials compete and struggle for local and
international workshops and conferences for the purposes of travel allowance and shopping with
little to no application of post conference knowledge. My interactions with scholars from
Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Republic of Benin also confirm the experiences in Nigeria and
Ghana. Similarly, the period of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) in most African
countries witnessed mass training and retraining of public officials to re-condition their minds
to the tenets of SAP but with little to no fruits to the grassroots (see Mbaya 1995).
From the foregoing, African public officials (politicians and practitioners) have faltered
in responding to the yearnings and aspirations of the citizenry, a situation that has constituted
not only international embarrassment but also reduced African continent to appendage of
developed nations only to beg for aid. African rulers delight much in international aid which
arguably, goes to governments that have chased out their educated citizens and mismanaged
their economies. For instance, the Ethiopian government arrested 38 persons, all citizens of
11
http://www.tribune.com.ng/12062007/news/news13.html
17
Ethiopia, in the aftermath of the street protests that greeted the manipulation, by the authorities,
of the results of the 2005 general elections12. The 38 are part of a total of 111 persons –
including 25 persons who had already been forced into exile – initially charged with an
assortment of offences arising from the elections. They are mostly intellectuals drawn from the
academia, the media, and civil society organisations. Aid makes it possible for African rulers to
buy off middle class people and integrate them into its patronage. The tendency is that those
outside of government capture aid by forming NGOs to do advocacy work. For example, in
Uganda, the fastest growing employer outside the state is NGOs (Mwenda 2007:A6).
At the Group of Eight, G8 Summit, invited African leaders merely succeeded in
projecting their countries as needy and ravaged by poverty and diseases. What solutions do
African leaders take to the G8 Summit? Do African leaders have interactions with their scholars
in order to arrive at solutions to their local problems? At the 2007 G8 meeting in Germany, the
save-our-soul desire of African leaders received a promise of $60 billion.
(2) African Scholars
In the face of high unemployment among university graduates in Africa, Ndoye (2005)
has raised a fundamental question: Is the quality and relevance of education flawed – while
Africa relies heavily on outside expertise? If African scholars are of low quality, then there is no
possibility of being relevant to the outside world. Evidence abound that they are able to compete
with their counterparts elsewhere. For example, since 1990, an average of 20,000 highly
educated Africans, among them academics, have been migrating to the North every year (Zeleza
2005:209). According to the World Bank (2005), about a quarter to 50% graduates from
countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Mozambique, Kenya leave their countries to work in Western
democracies, while the figure for Haiti and Jamaica stands at 80%. Statistics shows that over
100,000 Ugandans live in the US and another 70,000 live in the UK. East Asia has closed this
gap by creating the right policy and institutional incentives for their skilled citizens to stay at
home. Further, the World Bank’s study showed that only less than five per cent of the skilled
12
In the 2005 general elections, the opposition, organised under the banner of the Coalition for Unity
and Democracy (CUD) scored important gains which, through various desperate measures, the ruling
EPRDF of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, speedily thwarted and annulled. The ensuing popular protests
were brutally suppressed by the security forces and the leading figures of the opposition, many of them
intellectuals and election winners, were arrested and clamped in prolonged detention under conditions
that were, to say the least, harsh and inhumane.
18
nationals of countries like India, Brazil, China and Indonesia live abroad (World Bank 2005
cited in Mwenda 2007:A6).
Apart from the brain-drain syndrome, many talented African scholars, because of poor
conditions of service, have gone into money making ventures. At the same time, there are some
that still believe in “African development is from within” and they are still working laboriously
on this vision. There are two issues I want to consider here: (a) Quality and relevance of African
education and (b) outside/foreign expertise. Which one influences the other? Some might want
us to believe that low quality and irrelevance of African education led to the reliance on foreign
expertise. But a non-myopic scrutiny of African problems in relation to the role of outside world
shows that the reverse is the case. It is Africa’s dependence and reliance on foreign ideology,
monocratic system of governance and foreign expertise, which originated in the colonial period
that led to low quality and irrelevance of Africa education. Right from the onset, educational
foundation laid by colonial administrations for quality of academic streams, curriculum design
and an approach to higher education made little effort to respond to national economic needs
and local demand. By and large, curriculum design for African educational system does not give
enough and sufficient attention to the study of African governance structures – endogenous
impulses and capability of diverse peoples of Africa – that exist in Africa.
The issue of relevance of African universities to their immediate communities is my preoccupation and I will dwell on this aspect before linking it to funding. In some African
universities, scholars must of necessity publish certain percentage of their papers in foreign
countries before they are judged to have made meaningful contribution and considered for
promotion. The question of relevance of such publications to immediate communities of such
scholars is given little or no consideration. The argument here is not to discourage foreign
publications. But the issue of relevance of research activities to scholars’ immediate
communities is very germane if African scholars will live up to the challenges around them.
Because of this condition, ‘incentives’ or the rush to publish in foreign journals are very high –
intellectual neo-colonialism. This intellectual colonial syndrome has accelerated, in recent time,
the shift of focus of many African scholars from local relevance to the “reigning” foreign
ideologies. Invariably, we are still intellectually developing their economy because the more
we rush over there to publish, the more employment we generate (in publishing houses) for their
citizens and the more tax returns to their governments.
19
Higher institutions should be sources of new ideas and innovation for all areas of life in
Africa. In developed nations, universities are ranked based on their performance every year and
it is this ranking that determines accessibility of each university to research grants. These
research grants fall into the category of task specific fund. This fund has enabled some
universities in developed nations to equip their libraries up to date as against what is obtainable
in libraries in most African universities where they are ill-equipped by governments. One
partially possible reason for the lukewarm attitude of government towards funding of education
in Africa is that African scholars have not been able to effectively prove to African governments
their capabilities and potentials in turning things around in the continent. It is true that African
governments do not put priority on education, nonetheless, one expects that African scholars
ought to have included the neglect of their potentials and capabilities by the African
governments as one of the major issues in several struggles organized by them (African
scholars) to enhance their conditions of service.
Most African scholars are noted for propagating foreign ideas hook, line and sinker.
Whenever they focus on African problems, they normally do justice to analyzing the problems,
but when they get to the area of how to address the problems, they enter into “cul-de-sac” (dead
end) of intellectual exercise – they “faint”. The normal suggestions one reads in such
“publications” take the form of: “government should embark on reforms in…sector”,
“government should enact responsive policy to address the problem”, “government should
ensure that its policies have human face”, “government should provide the enabling
environment”, “leadership should ensure transparency and accountability to the citizenry”, etc.
The abc of how to address African problems is lacking. It is true that African problems are
reflected in the writings of African scholars but the strategies of how to address the problems, to
me, have not been reflecting adaptation. The resultant effect is intellectual poverty.
For instance, initially I thought this problem was peculiar to Nigerian scholars until I
met some scholars in international conferences and discovered the same pattern. As a matter of
fact, scholars from other parts of the world only use African experiences to flex their academic
‘muscles’. They did not have anything tangible to offer Africa on the way forward. To be
specific, in July 2006, I was at the XVI World Congress of Sociology 2006 organized by
International Sociological Association (ISA) with the theme, “The Quality of Social Existence
in a Globalizing World” in Durban, South Africa. In spite of this relevant theme and the fact
that the Congress was held on African soil, renowned Professors across the globe in diverse
20
social science disciplines had no recommendation on the way forward for African continent. I
therefore arrived at a conclusion that scholars in developed countries use African continent as a
laboratory and its conditions as specimens for their intellectual endeavours. In order to further
drive the point home here, I will draw upon my experience with scholars in one of the sessions
at the Congress. If there is any gathering of intellectuals where solution to African problems
should be proffered, it is in this session with the title: “Crises and Reconstruction in Africa.” It
is, however, difficult to believe that all the papers presented in this session had no single
suggestion on the way forward for Africa. At that point, I became disappointed. During the
questions and answers period, I disagreed with the speakers and made the participants to realize
that: “analysing and discussing African problems for another decade will never change African
problems.”
Similarly, the same issue came up during a conference – First Annual International
Conference on “Nigeria in the 21st Century: Issues and Challenges” – organized by the Faculty
of Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria in the first week of
September 2007. The Keynote Speaker, a renowned Professor of Political Science, spent all his
time in analysing and discussing Nigerian problems without consideration for solution. When I
raised the issue on the way forward for Nigeria, he responded: “I am trained to identify
problems; I am not trained to seek for solution.” This partly confirms the problems associated
with the system of education bequeathed to Africa by the colonialists. Here I want to emphasise
that it is important to begin to conceptualise development models that best serve Africa’s
interests. This can be done by focusing research on weak points as well as blind points in the
continent of Africa. Diverse peoples of Africa in their various ecological and cultural settings
possess tremendous self-governing capabilities that are prerequisites of advancing technopolitical economy in Africa. It is important to identify these capabilities in various sectors of
African socio-economic and political landscape and let the peoples of Africa know that they
possess certain qualities needed for African development and at the same time let the world
know this too.
Using appropriate institutional mechanism, African scholars’ capacities in various fields
should be identified for further innovation and invention. Without intellectual breakthrough,
there is no societal development simply because intellectual capacity is the foundation of
development. Good critiques with concrete recommendations on specific problems are needed.
By now, we should be tired of myopic and shallow suggestions/recommendations. What we
21
need is the abc of how to address specific problems that are confronting African continent. This
is where the role of African scholars becomes indispensable. The next section contains
discussions on the potentials and capabilities of African scholars
THE ROLES OF AFRICAN SCHOLARS IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT
Penning de Vries (2005) link the emergence of ‘bright spots’13 or community success to
a number of conditions and the presence of certain drivers. While some of the conditions are
incentives accruable to participants, drivers can come in the form of strong individuals, new
community organizations, innovative technologies and practices or external agents. The
introduction of innovations by researchers to farmers and the consequent success of the efforts
in Ng’uuru Gakirwe in Tharakai district, Kenya attracted many farmers who later benefitted
from the programmes. The innovations included irrigation scheme, processing, packaging and
export of products abroad. The Ng’uuru Gakirwe irrigation scheme in Tharaka was able to
expand from 135 farmers in 1988 to over 430 farmers in 2000 simply because research efforts
and training of local farmers changed an important exogenous variable (arid condition) through
irrigation and new techniques that constituted favourable factors (processing and packaging).
The farmers specialized in the production of high-value organic herbs, fruits and vegetables,
accompanied by processing, packaging and sale in niche and export markets abroad. Average
incomes of farmers rose from almost zero to over $300 per farmer per month (Penning de Vries
2005, 87).
Similarly, the Lareii Water Harvesting Project, designed for water harvesting from roads
into earthen pans for supplemental irrigation in Nakuru, Kenya, represents an effective
innovation that was quickly adopted by farmers. Various harvesting methods (roof water
harvesting and runoff water harvesting, etc.) designed by researchers and extension services
were transferred to local people who in turn designed and constructed the pans themselves.
They designed new pans in order to store and treat harvested water for both irrigation and
domestic purposes. The pace of adoption of the innovations within the area is another important
factor. Starting with about 400 pans in 1998, there were about 2,000 pans in 2004, a fivefold
increase in just 6 years. Although the physical conditions may have suited the innovation well,
other factors also affect it; these are, for example, technology transfer from researchers,
13
Bright Spots are small communities or households that have improved their livelihoods and natural
resources significantly despite having degraded biophysical and socio-economic conditions around them.
22
extension services and access to markets. In 1998 there were approximately 409 households that
adopted the systems; by the end of 1999 the number increased to 1,030. That represents a 150
percent increase in one year. By August 2004, over 4,000 households had water harvesting
systems, indicating a tenfold increase in just 6 years. Apart from farm family incomes that have
increased from a negligible amount to about $2,000 to $6,000 per year, food security and
household health has been improved due to better nutrition and clean drinking water which is
treated for suspended sediments, boiled and filtered so that it is clean (Penning de Vries 2005,
93).
Examples of creative innovations from Africa that can be replicated to enhance
development abound:

Investigations carried out by the Department of Agricultural Engineering, Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria demonstrated a saving of 20 work-days when
farmers used mechanical methods designed by agricultural engineers, instead of the
traditional methods (Akinola 2002, 73);

The Department of Food Science and Technology of this same Nigerian university,
using physical principles, has developed effective and viable methods of food
preservation (see Taiwo et. al. 1997; Enujiugha. et. al. 2002; Akanbi et. al. 2006).

the Songhai Centre in Porto Novo, Republic of Benin is renown for training in
entrepreneurship opportunities in agribusiness, ranging from animal feed/feed
processing, fish farming, mushroom farming, rearing, snail farming, dry season
vegetable production, bio-gas production to piggery (Adebisi 2006:29).

Scholars in the Department of microbiology in Obafemi Awolowo University had
invented techniques using decomposed wastes to generate energy. In particular, Prof.
Odeyemi has been using energy generated for cooking and lightning in his home for
several years (see Odeyemi, 1979, 1982; Odeyemi, et. al. 1991).

Jelani Aliyuiii, has designed a state-of-the-art electronic car. The car is described as
an advanced technology extended range electric passenger model. It was regarded
as an “American Revolution and the hottest concept in decision line.” The Nigerian
automobile engineer was among eight designers that engaged in tough competition
within two months. While seven of the eight of the model concepts reviewed were
eliminated, Aliyu’s model was selected for development (Anya 2007:2).
23

Scholars in the Department of civil engineering in Obafemi Awolowo University
had designed machine that converts palm kernel wastes to activated carbon for
water treatment to de-colourise, and de-odourise water as well as remove taste,
chlorine and heavy metals such as lead, cromium, cadmium and arsenic that are
cancinogenic. This machine can be used for industrial water treatment and liquid
refining (Ogedengbe et. al. 1985; Adewumi et. al. 2005). At present, Engineer
Adewumi has developed batch processing furnace capable of assisting rural women
and youth who work in palm oil processing in activated carbon production to
enhance their income and social status.
It is important to note that people are also transforming indigenous knowledge inherited
from parents to confront present day realities. In the Saki, Oke-Ogun area of Nigeria, people in
intermediate-technology institutions (notably in the fabrication of aluminium cooking utensils),
blacksmiths and iron-smelters, iron-benders and welders, fabrication and designers associations
inherited their skills from their grandparents. Saki is the historical origin of Ogun, the god of
iron. Associations of skilled workers involved in the iron industry assist one another financially,
physically and transmit acquired knowledge and craft technology to new community members.
In the particular case of Nigeria, there has been virtually no attempt by government to
establish small scale industries where adapted technological skills can be used in agriculture to
increase food production. As a result, produce, notably yam flour elubo gari, beans, maize,
tobacco and citrus fruits perish during the harvest season because there is no way system of
preservation. Yet there are many community-based institutions that have adopted an
intermediate agro-allied and spare-parts manufacturing strategy.
This is just a small sampling of innovations that can, but are not, benefiting more
African farmers. The goal is to empower these innovators so that their potentials and skills can
be harnessed towards economic development in the continent. Whereas, food security and
poverty reduction require the widespread and continuous invention and adoption of new
technology in the form of both new methods of production (process innovation) and new
products (product innovations), vast resources and energies of farmers are wasted perennially
due to non-availability of appropriate technologies for food processing and storage.
24
Community Development in Africa
Having been disappointed by the state, people of Africa have invested their sovereignty
horizontally in one another through collective action and self-organizing capabilities to address
problems of daily existence. While these people-oriented institutions otherwise called
community development associations, community-based institutions/organisations vary in their
attributes, the common denominator is their capacity to mobilize people and their potential to
increase material resources for community projects. These institutions function as non-partisan
umbrellas for rallying community members together to address community problems. Some
functions that that they perform include: (a) infrastructural development of the village or
community; (b) settlement of individual and inter-village disputes; (c) promotion of community
relations; (d) maintenance of socio-cultural functions; and (e) overall local governance of the
community, including making and execution of policies and laws.
Indications from Nigeria, Ghana, Chad and Uganda show that community-based
organizations function as de facto units of local government (Olowu and Wunsch 2004, 11). It
is important to note that the economic, social and political impact of these institutions are being
rediscovered, especially in developing countries (Narayan et al. 2001). There is evidence that
civil society – occupational, community-based, and religious organizations – exist in localities
throughout Africa, and in some circumstances can be an important participant in service
delivery and in enforcing accountability (Barkan, 1994; Dia, 1996; Olowu 1999; Ribot, 2000,
Akinola, 2000, 2003, 2004).
Community institutions in Africa possess self-organizing capabilities through which
community members relate to one another in a rule-ordered relationship, sharing ideas, and
using their own initiatives and institutional potentials to address problems of daily existence.
Examples of local people’s provision and production of public goods using available social
capital (associations) are well documented throughout African continent (Adedeji and Ayo,
2000; Ayo, 2002; Olowu and Wunsch, 2004; Sawyer, 2005; Akinola, 2007). The existence of
these community-based institutions confirm that the people, too govern; not the state alone. If
indeed the people govern, then government governs in a limited sense. However, Olowu and
Wunsch (2004, 248) note that though these community institutions and social capital exist in
many African countries, few succeed in connecting them to the local government system.
These structures should form the basis upon which African scholars engage in intellectual
entrepreneurial endeavours. From this point, African scholars can begin to search how to work
25
with people at the grassroots levels to achieve productive and liberating civilization in the
continent.
My research interests have centred on adaptive, effective administrative know-how and
institutional mechanisms that are capable of re-orientating African governments to overcome
the problems of underdevelopment and poverty. This in turn inspired the establishment of the
Irepodun Investment Cooperation (IIC) in Osun State, Nigeria. The Cooperation involves 16
associations working in conjunction with the local government council. The two-day workshop
that kick-started the initiative was conducted in Yoruba language. Irepodun Investment
Cooperation was designed to be an inward-looking vehicle aimed at harnessing and utilizing
local resources to generate employment for local youths. It is a joint venture between all
interested indigenes of the local government (at home and abroad) as well as any interested
person residing in the community and the local government council. Actual ownership in the
investment is based on the ability of individuals and organizations to purchase shares of the
company with cash, crop-Nairaiv, time-Naira and innovation-Naira. Farmers can purchase
shares through crop-Naira, while casual workers can purchase shares through time-Naira.
Academics that are able to generate innovations in any areas of local industrial development can
buy shares through innovation-Naira. All workers in the local industries and factories are
expected to purchase shares and be part of owners. This is essential because tendency for strong
commitment to the survival of local industry is higher when workers are part of owners of local
industry since the workers know that if the industry fails, they lose their shares and investment.
Invariably, wealth is created when opportunities are opened to local citizens to be joint owners
of local industries. At the same time, local industries would provide job opportunities for the
youths. In such circumstance, local industries and enterprises would enable the transitional poor
to move out of poverty as it opens opportunities not only to be co-owners of local investments
but also to become employees in local industries and factories. In the long run, local economic
development would reduce rural-urban drift (Akinola 2005b,d,e; 2006b,g).
The board of managers for IIC was elected in December 2005 and the leaders of
company have completed the drafting of its constitution and the next step is registration with the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. Afterwards the sale of shares to the public and to the local
government will commence. However, the local government council has failed to follow
through in its role as facilitator. This has significantly hampered progress of the project. Yet the
Osun State Government, impressed by the potential of Irepodun Investment Cooperation model,
26
launched a similar strategy for economic self-reliance, food security, employment generation
and poverty reduction. Amazingly, rather than consult and collaborate with the local initiative,
the government opted to visit and study a similar program in China!
BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN UNIVERSITY, INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT
THROUGH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BRAIN-BOX
If it is correct that development is a function of intellectual capacity of any society, then
there are strong theoretical reasons to believe that the high number of universities (over 250)
and scholars in African should enable the continent to experience a passage to developed
society. Similarly, if knowledge is a means to an end (where the end equals development), then
African scholars must be concerned with how to develop theories that are relevant to African
needs and then pragmatically take such theories and knowledge to Africa’s streets, rural areas
and other centres of life. To do this, concerted efforts must be directed at bridging the gaps
between universities, governments and industries in Africa.
It is in this light that this paper attempts at designing African Development Brain-Box
(ADBB) that can serve as a control unit for the three development players (see fig. 2). ADBB is
conceived as an intellectual center where innovations and new ideas generated by African
scholars are adapted through experimental stations on a pilot scale and then send its output to
the community where they will benefit the people. ADBB will be an innovation center where
scholars with new ideas can receive grants and spend some time there to fully develop the ideas.
27
GOVERNMENTS
UNIVERSITIES
AFRICAN
DEVELOPMENT
BRAIN-BOX
(ADBB)
INDUSTRIES
Exogenous
Variables
COMMUNITIES
Fig. 2: Proposed African Development Brain-Box (ADBB)
Fig. 2 can be operationalised through five steps.
Step 1: African scholars should view African realities with intellectual lenses through
exogenous variables.
Step 2: African scholars generate knowledge. As discussed earlier (under theoretical
framework), there are two categories of knowledge that African scholars need to generate, build
and develop in order to overcome socioeconomic and political problems in the continent. First
are indigenous and endogenous knowledge that local people are using to surmount their daily
problems. Second is knowledge generated by African scholars, some of which are on the shelf
in libraries, while new ones are needed to be generated.
Step 3: African scholars pass knowledge to ADBB where knowledge will be assessed on its
strength to resolve specific problem. If the model is found to be good, then it will be
experimented at the field. At this stage, industrialists will be involved in fabrication of machine
that is necessary to translate the model into reality.
Step 4: Universities, being in close contact with governments, should through its adaptive
research, discover the needs of the society, develop new ideas and innovations and send them to
28
ADBB, an African Innovation Center (AIC), which plays moderating influence for knowledge
utilization. As shown in fig. 3, it is ADBB/AIC that will adapt knowledge to reality through its
experimental stations and pilot projects for every sector of African economy – social, economic,
technological, and political spheres. AIC will have strong community relations such that any
innovation coming to it will be quickly fixed up in relevant or demand communities where the
idea is needed and can be demonstrated.
Step 5: After the pilot project, there is the need for feedback, called cybernetics which will
occur at three levels as shown in figure 3. According to Nobert Wener (1986), cybernetics is the
scientific study of the way in which information is moved about and controlled in machines, the
brain, and the nervous system. It is overarching factor that guarantee stability of objects like
vehicles in motion and human beings and animals in movement. In other words, it is a scientific
study of human control functions. This could be applied to the functioning of ADBB. ADBB is
like a living organism that relies on homeostatic functions or ‘hypothalamus’ in human beings
to maintain stability at all times. The feedback on the performance of pilot project will be sent
to ADBB, which will lead to the refining of the model/package that will be demonstrated again
at the field. The performance of the model shall be evaluated and the report sent to ADBB for
further refinement. At this stage, the model should be ready for full replication.
29
ADBB/AIC
In-House
Demonstration
Universities
Community
Relation Unit
Experimental
Stations
Pilot Projects at
Community
Level
Cybernetics - 1
Refined
Package
Cybernetics - 2
Cybernetics - 3
Project
Replication
Fig. 3: Illustration of the Mechanism of ADBB/AIC in taking theories to African Streets
With innovations coming from scholars and robust institutional arrangements, the
government functionaries will find it easier to impact positively on the life of the citizens at
community level. It is imperative to emphasise here that training of government functionaries
should be oriented towards reality by filling specific gaps in the operations of public officials at
the community level. For example, training programmes in ministries of agriculture, works,
health, education, etc. should be experimented at the fields. The trainees should have specific
sites of interests they want trainers to use to demonstrate new ideas to them. Civil servants
should spend less time in offices so that their presence could be felt in communities where they
30
can have contacts with the people. It is expected that experiences they gather through their
contacts with academics should be shared with the community members.
The idea demonstrated in the diagram below (Figure 4) uses food security and poverty
reduction programmes as an example. The diagram shows the relationships between the
federal/central government, academia, and industrialists. In self-governing systems, citizens,
interacting through appropriate institutional arrangements, engage in rule making at all levels of
decision-making (operational, collective choice, and constitutional) and within all scales or
domains (neighborhood, township, local government or district, state/province, national, and
supranational). Boundaries between the three decision making levels are blurred. Depending on
the activity at hand, two or all the three actions can take place within a particular scale or
domain. In order to implement this idea at continental level in Africa, there are eleven stages
this programme needs to pass through as proposed by the author elsewhere (Akinola 2006j).
31
Federal
Government
Universities and
Polytechnics
Ministries of
Agriculture and
Comm. & Industries
Industrialists
Brain-storming on
Polycentricity Designing Institutions
Arrangements
Re-orientating
values
Agricultural
resources
Polycentric
privatization
Processed agricultural
products
(local industries)
Adaptive
technology
Consumption and
export
Share-holding
Food for
the poor
Bonus and
dividends for
share-holders
Employment
generation
Creating wealth
FOOD SECURITY
and
POVERTY REDUCTION
Fig. 4: Illustration of implementation strategy on food security and poverty reduction.
32
Still in Figure 4, the application of polycentricity in relation to the actualization of the
food security and poverty reduction programmes can be realized by pursuing five key
strategies14 as discussed below:
1. Re-orientation of values – Economies that dominate parts of Africa (that is economies based
on the extraction of raw minerals such as platinum, oil, gold, diamond, etc., for export with
refinement done abroad) do nothing to promote entrepreneurship, ingenuity or creativity in
Africa. A shift towards the more inward-looking and abundant agricultural resources and
adaptive technology to promote agriculture would boost local industrialization. Only then
would Africans put a premium on consumption of local products since they are owners of
these industries that produce the goods.
2. Creating wealth – Wealth creation becomes possible when opportunities are opened to local
citizens to be joint owners of local industries.
3. Generating employment – In polycentric arrangements, privatization of local industries and
enterprises can enable the transitional poor to move out of poverty as it opens opportunities
not only to be co-owners of food investments but also employment in local industries and
factories.
4. Providing affordable food for the poor – In order to cater for the residual poor, food centres
(FC) should be established in towns and cities, and manned by people of integrity. Tax
reduction should be given to companies, organizations and individuals that donate food to
these centres and such food could be sold to the poor at considerably reduced prices.
Developed nations already employ this strategy to cater to the poor. Volunteer workers at
FC can use the experiences they gain to secure better jobs in the future. Part of the money
realized from such centres can be used to care for the needy, victims of disaster, or the aged
and the handicapped. If it is true that, ‘when poor people are hungry, the rich cannot sleep
with their two eyes closed’, designing a special programme for the poor in Africa will help
reduce violence and crises in the continent.
5. Reducing poverty – When local people have access to employment opportunities and
receive bonus and dividends from local investments, wealth is invariably created, the people
are economically empowered and, in the long run, poverty is reduced across Africa.
14
These strategies are adapted from the Nigerian National Economic Empowerment and Development
Strategy (NEEDS).
33
Policy implications
1. If the African continent is to move towards good governance, technological breakthrough and democratic development, funding and relevance must be embedded in all
future policy considerations. Funding, without relevance is useless; likewise relevant
initiatives without funding are futile. Ideally, African governments should demand
innovations and inventions from African scholars, while African scholars should
demand adequate funding from government. In addition to general funding, task specific
funds which constitute incentives for innovation and generation of new ideas relevant to
African needs should be offered.
2. The curricula in African universities need to be re-designed in order to orient African
scholars to an active and relevant role in Africa’s development. In this process African
scholars need to focus on indigenous and endogenous political economic structures and,
extract governance principles that can be modified to suit the present realities.
3. Because knowledge is the bedrock of the development of human society, policies that
will ensure that adaptive knowledge are generated for African needs should be
formulated.
4. It is also important that African public officials are given new orientation that can make
them operate as Africans. Training should be oriented towards reality by filling specific
gaps in the operations of public officials at the community level.
Conclusion
This paper concludes that the efforts of African universities, African governments and
African industries need to by synergised so that they can work together to play a prominent role
in determining the destiny of Africa and to help create a living socio-economic, political,
cultural and liberating civilization of the continent. But African universities should take the
lead. Since knowledge is the bedrock of development in any society, African scholars need to
rethink their analytical tools, jettison failed models of development, and discretely focus on
those that can yield enduring socio-economic and political liberation for Africans. African
universities and scholars should identify how African peoples craft shared strategies and
problem solving interdependencies from their old traditions to address problems of daily life.
This, invariably, would lead to the development of theories that are relevant to African needs.
Such home-grown models of development generated in African higher institutions can then be
34
passed on to government functionaries. Government functionaries working in close
collaboration with scholars can then pragmatically take such theories and knowledge to African
streets by adapting the new knowledge to African ecological and cultural conditions.
If African leaders want to emulate the successes of advanced industrial nations, then
they need to learn how to make effective use of the physical, human, and institutional resources
of their continent. At the same time, in a continuous manner, African governments, through
their political actions should initiate development by throwing challenges on African scholars,
who should in turn, through knowledge generated, guide government by using the results of
their applied and adaptive research. However, the governments should arise to their
responsibilities not only by funding higher institutions generally and adequately but also by
introducing task specific funding that will serve as incentives for innovations. In this area, this
paper recommends the establishment of African Innovation Center (AIC) that is conceptualised
as African Development Brain-Box (ADBB), which should be the joint responsibility of
NEPAD, AU, CODESRIA, and other goal-oriented bodies. The progress of Africa depends on
Africans themselves and African scholars must lead and show the way forward.
35
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i
Tharaka district is classified as arid and semiarid lands that can only accommodate dry
land crops such as millet, sorghum and cowpea, and livestock keeping. In most cases,
these crops suffer recurrent moisture stress, leading to crop failure due to poor rainfall
distribution. Thus, about 60 percent of the population in the area live below the poverty
line (Republic of Kenya 2004). The Ng’uuru Gakirwe Water Project therefore started
out with poor disadvantaged members. The scheme covers an area of 60 km,
accommodating a total of 430 farmers and has its own processing and packaging
factory. The farmers have formed a company, Meru Herbs, which handles the factory
39
as well as marketing of chamomile, carcade and lemongrass. These three herbs are
grown organically and sold to the factory for processing, packaging and export to the
EU (mostly Italy, Belgium and Germany). Training is an important component of the
project as farmers come from a background of rain-fed cereal crops with little
experience in irrigation or exotic herbs. In addition, farmers grow fruits like mango,
banana and papaya which are also sold to Meru Herbs for making of various types of
additive-free jams exported to the EU and Japan.
Meru Herbs Company is the commercial arm of the Ng’uuru Gakirwe Water Project
and is located in the project area.
ii
Lare, a semiarid area, before the project had about 70 percent of all households
experienced serious water-shortage problems. The Lare Water Harvesting Project has
been a showcase of how rainwater harvesting can transform livelihoods within a
relatively short time. In a project that spanned 2 years between 1998 and 1999, farmers
were trained in roof water harvesting, runoff water harvesting and simple water
treatment methods.
iii
Aliyu had his primary and secondary schools education as well as part of his
university education in Nigeria before he got a scholarship to study Automobile
Design in the US.
iv
Naira is Nigerian currency as we have Rand for South Africa and Cedi for Ghana.
Crop-Naira is a concept that translates famers’ crops to monetary equivalent (Naira in
Nigeria’s context) for the purpose of purchasing shares in local industry. For instance,
if a farmer harvests 15 tons of maize he may decide to sell 10 tons to a local industry,
while he keeps 2 tons for his household. He may decide to use the remaining 3 tons to
purchase shares in the local industry. Meaning that he will be paid the monetary value
of 10 tons, while shares certificate that worths 3 tons of maize will be issued to him by
the local industry. The same applies to workers in the local factory. They may use part
of their salaries to purchase shares.
40