Download or read book Industrial Clusters and Innovation Systems in Africa written by Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka and published by UNU. This book was released on 2007 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the incidence and role of clusters as a viable and increasingly important form of industrial organization in Africa. It presents a series of theoretically grounded case studies that analyze clusters in different industrial sectors and at different levels of economic development. The overall aim is to improve understanding of how local clusters can be transformed into local systems of innovation and how local clusters can be better connected to global actors. The authors draw out implications for policy and practice and provide guidance to governments, private sector associations, and non-governmental organizations.--Publisher's description.

Download or read book Creating Systems of Innovation in Africa written by Mammo Muchie and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2013-01-29 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most popularised concept in the economics of innovation literature has been the national system of innovation (NSI). It was in the late 1980s that the concept that Frederik List coined as the National Political Economy of Production took off again with different thinkers writing about the peculiarities and distinctions of the Japanese, American, British, German, East Asian Tigers and other varieties of system construction. Freeman defines National System of Innovation as the network of institutions in the public and private sectors whose activities and interactions initiate, import, modify and diff use new technologies. Richard Nelson defines it as a set of institutions whose interactions determine the innovative performance of national firms. Lundvall defines the system of innovation as the elements and relationships which interact in the production, diffusion and use of new and economically useful knowledge and are either located within or rooted inside the borders of a nation state. The normative assumption is that those nations that succeeded in building economic strength relied on the science, engineering, technology and innovation capability that made them to achieve an innovation advantage to put them ahead in the world, acquiring national or regional economic leadership as the case may be depending on what level of analyses is selected to look at particular failure, success or progress they made. In this volume we have a glimpse of how in different African economies from Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria specific cases have been taken to explore how systems of innovation is evolving.

Download or read book Industrial Clusters and Micro and Small Enterprises in Africa written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2010-12-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute, and the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development (FASID), in collaboration with researchers affiliated with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), recently conducted a study on Africa s domestic enterprises to improve the understanding of the constraints micro and small enterprises in Africa face in improving productivity and expanding their markets. In Africa, there are stark performance gaps between domestically owned enterprises and foreign-owned enterprises in terms of sales performance, productivity, and ability to reach distant markets. Among others, size appears to be a dominant factor in explaining the gap. Against this background, the study analyzes how naturally formed industrial clusters concentrations of enterprises engaged in same or closely related industrial activities in specific locations could potentially mitigate constraints Africa s micro and small enterprises face and enhance their business performance. The study is one of the first comprehensive quantitative inquiries on industrial clusters in Africa. The analysis specifically focuses on the role of spontaneously grown clusters of light manufacturing industries based on a set of original case studies of industrial clusters conducted for this research project. One of the key findings from the case studies was that cluster-based micro and small enterprises are performing better than similar micro and small enterprises outside of the clusters in terms of sales performance and ability to reach distant markets. Market access is a leading reason for cluster-based enterprises to choose their current locations. However, cluster-based enterprises face another set of unique growth constraints. By the very nature of spontaneous agglomera tion, new enterprises continue to flow to the clusters seeking the profit opportunities and better access to markets at such locations. The result can be intense competition in addition to increased congestion. Space constraints often impede growth within clusters. The lack of alternative locations available for industrial activities in the same cities, generic infrastructure bottlenecks, and unclear zoning policies and their unpredictable changes limit firms location choices and constrain their mobility. While competition should improve efficiency, lack of capacity among those competing cluster-based enterprises to invest and innovate does not generate growth out of the competition. The vast majority of naturally formed clusters of light manufacturing industries in Africa are still at a survival level, where agglomeration externalities are only limited to expand quantity but not quality as we observe in more advanced innovation-oriented clusters in elsewhere in the world. Existing studies on such natural industrial clusters in Africa have found that the lack of managerial skills among entrepreneurs running micro and small enterprises is a major constraint for innovation and growth in the clusters. As a part of this study, pilot managerial skills training programs were conducted in two industrial clusters on an experimental basis, where a group of randomly selected entrepreneurs within the clusters were given three-week long crush course of based management such as bookkeeping, marketing, business planning, and production management. The impact evaluation of the experiments showed significant positive impacts of the training programs on value added and gross profits of enterprises. Raising the current survival-type industrial clusters, which have been formed as a coping mechanism to weak investment climate, into more dynamic innovating clusters will be an important avenue for fostering growth of micro and small enterprises in Africa. While national efforts to improve investment climate and investments in human capital are undoubtedly important, there could be more targeted policies to be formulated, in complementing general policies, to support growth of micro and small domestic enterprises using existing industrial clusters as a natural springboard for their growth. In that context, the study discusses the merit of cluster-based managerial human capital development to build steps toward more innovation-oriented clusters, the importance of sound spatial planning policy, particularly at the local level in the context of urban planning, the need to expand market access and economic linkages for industrial clusters including regional integration and linkages with large enterprises.

Download or read book Innovative Clusters Drivers of National Innovation Systems written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2001-06-11 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policies to stimulate innovation at national and local levels must both build on and contribute to the dynamics of innovative clusters. This book presents a series of papers written by policy makers and academic experts in the field, that demonstrate why and how this can be done.

Download or read book Agricultural Innovation Systems written by The World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 685 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managing the ability of agriculture to meet rising global demand and to respond to the changes and opportunities will require good policy, sustained investments, and innovation - not business as usual. Investments in public Research and Development, extension, education, and their links with one another have elicited high returns and pro-poor growth, but these investments alone will not elicit innovation at the pace or on the scale required by the intensifying and proliferating challenges confronting agriculture. Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in Research and Development, the ability to innovate is often related to collective action, coordination, the exchange of knowledge among diverse actors, the incentives and resources available to form partnerships and develop businesses, and conditions that make it possible for farmers or entrepreneurs to use the innovations. While consensus is developing about what is meant by 'innovation' and 'innovation system', no detailed blueprint exists for making agricultural innovation happen at a given time, in a given place, for a given result. The AIS approach that looks at these multiple conditions and relationships that promote innovation in agriculture, has however moved from a concept to a sub-discipline with principles of analysis and action. AIS investments must be specific to the context, responding to the stage of development in a particular country and agricultural sector, especially the AIS. This sourcebook contributes to identifying, designing, and implementing the investments, approaches, and complementary interventions that appear most likely to strengthen AIS and to promote agricultural innovation and equitable growth. It emphasizes the lessons learned, benefits and impacts, implementation issues, and prospects for replicating or expanding successful practices. The information in this sourcebook derives from approaches that have been tested at different scales in different contexts. It reflects the experiences and evolving understanding of numerous individuals and organizations concerned with agricultural innovation, including the World Bank. This information is targeted to the key operational staff in international and regional development agencies and national governments who design and implement lending projects and to the practitioners who design thematic programs and technical assistance packages. The sourcebook can also be an important resource for the research community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Download or read book Why Industrial Revolution By Passes Africa written by Hilary Nwokeabia and published by Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2009-07-30 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Industrial Revolution By-Passes Africa is a compelling analysis of the complex dimensions of development in Africa. It identifies and explains the failure of innovations and knowledge in Africa to generate industrial revolution in the continent using two main models: the motivation and growth-ladder models. Focusing on the indifference and secrecy among innovators in the continent, the book shows how the endemic indifference and unparalleled secrecy among African innovators hinders the continent from successfully going up a sustainable development ladder. It argues that with private and un-rewarded knowledge bearers innovating in isolation and dieing in the same fashion, the continent has experienced "e;continuous but non-additive innovation system"e; as against "e;continuous and additive innovation system"e;. Written with the general reader in mind, Why Industrial Revolution By-Passes Africa is an important addition to the current discussions on the problems of innovations, technology and industrialisation in Africa.

Download or read book Entrepreneurship Technology Commercialisation and Innovation Policy in Africa written by Chux Daniels and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of role of entrepreneurship, technology commercialisation and innovation policy for the achievement of economic development and prosperity in African societies. It adopts a broad innovation systems approach. The book examines entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology commercialisation alongside context-specific factors associated with them. It also provides an interdisciplinary perspective, by discussing the above disciplines in a connected way. This book is presented in three distinct parts. It starts by discussing entrepreneurship and the state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa. It then moves on to present technology commercialisation in Africa, before finally discussing the future directions for entrepreneurship, technology commercialisation and innovation policy. This broad picture provided in the book enables the reader to grasp the relevant messages, whilst the detailed analysis applies world-class theories and frameworks to deepen the readers understanding of key concepts and issues examined.

Download or read book Sustainable Industrialization in Africa written by Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable Industrialization in Africa explores the issues that confront development policy in the context of the MDGs and the post-2015 development agenda from an African perspective. The book argues that development is an ultimate outcome of sustainable, equitable industrialization, and that any development agenda for the future has to ensure that industrialization is fostered in a way that makes economies independent and responsive to the needs of all citizens. Future challenges for sustainable industrialization in Africa, based upon the differences in its current industrialization trajectories, are discussed to ensure that industrial growth results in positive economic and social outcomes in the context of the post-2015 development agenda.

Download or read book Challenges of African Transformation written by Mammo Muchie and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2012 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brief overview of the African economic picture reveals a paradox where the continent that has rich mineral resources, nearly a billion people and a land mass which includes the sizes of China, USA, India, Western Europe, Argentina together larger than the sum of these regions is in an unacceptable state of being an object of aid, debt and loans despite the vast resources both known and yet to be explored. Africa should have been a productive and innovation centre and not a charity and aid centre of the world where 'donorship' has replaced African national ownership' of not just Africa's resources, but even worse, Africa's own agency, autonomy and independence to shape policy and direction; to undertake African integrated national development by establishing a science, engineering and technology based knowledge, innovative, learning and competent economy. The chapters in this volume address the application of the innovation approach to a variety of problems in Africa. Together they highlight the critical importance of the innovation systems approach in each of the issues the authors preferred to select and analyse. In the African context, the application of innovation goes beyond firms to the informal activities at grassroots level. The boundaries and the range of actors and activities for innovation application are varied and not limited. This variation is represented in this volume by the diverse issues that the authors dealt with in their research by applying as common the use and application of innovation.

Download or read book Sectoral Innovation Systems in Africa written by Mammo Muchie and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All innovation systems have elements, components, parts with linkages, interconnections and interactions with boundaries at spatial, sectoral, or disciplinary levels. The elements are related to innovation creation, absorption, transfer and adaptation being either strong or weak with boundaries that range spatially from local to city, community, region, national and global levels. Innovation systems at national or sectoral level are influenced by conceptual frame and ideas, policy setting, context and environment, institutions, networks, actors, knowledge and incentives. The way the politics of system building plays out heavily influences the outputs, outcomes and impacts at various levels selected to locate the innovation system dynamics. Franco Malerba considers sectoral systems to be based on knowledge and technologies, actors, networks, and institutions. The complexity and dynamics of innovation at the sectoral level in the African context are not researched fully yet. This book i

Download or read book Industrial Innovation Networks and Economic Development written by Anant Kamath and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an innovative examination of how ‘low–technology’ industries operate. Based on extensive fieldwork in India, the book fuses economic and sociological perspectives on information sharing by means of informal interaction in a low-technology cluster in a developing country. In doing so, the book sheds new light on settings where economic relations arise as emergent properties of social relations. This book examines industrial innovation and microeconomic network behaviour among producers and clusters, perceiving knowledge diffusion to be a socially-spatial, as much as a geographically spatial, phenomenon. This is achieved by employing two methods – simulation modelling, and (quantitative, qualitative, and historical) social network analysis. The simulation model, based on its findings, motivates two empirical studies – one descriptive case and one network study – of low-tech rural and semi-urban traditional technology clusters in Kerala state in southern India. These cases demonstrate two contrasting stories of how social cohesion either supports or thwarts informal information sharing and learning. This book pushes towards an economic-sociology approach to understanding knowledge diffusion and technological learning, which perceives innovation and learning as being more social processes than the mainstream view perceives them to be. In doing so, it makes a significant contribution to the literature on defensive innovation and the role of networks in technological innovation and knowledge diffusion, as well as to policy studies of Indian small firm and traditional technology clusters.

Download or read book Learning to Compete in African Industry written by Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the institutional roots of the persistent differences in economic performance of firms, industries and countries in Africa. It draws attention to the role of institutions in supporting technical change and shows how technological progress is central to competitiveness in a global context. The role of initial conditions such as levels of literacy and natural endowment, the structure of industry and resource endowment are also emphasized. With its focus on how institutions shape systems of innovation this book makes a unique contribution to the debate about African development.

Download or read book Industrial Clusters written by John F. Wilson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-07-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Industrial Clusters shows the latest state of knowledge on the topic of industrial clusters, with a particular focus on clustering in the UK, bringing together a chronological coverage of the phenomenon. This set of original essays by a group of leading business and industrial historians offers fresh perspectives about clusters and clustering. A primary emphasis of the collection is how knowledge is generated and disseminated across a cluster, and whether these processes stimulated innovation and consequently longer-term sustainability. This analysis also prompts questions about which unit of analysis to examine, from the entrepreneurs and firms they created through to the industry as a whole and district in which they are located, or whether one should look outside the region for explanatory factors. Covering regions as diverse as North Wales, the Scottish Highlands, the City of London, the Potteries, Sheffield and Lancashire, the essays have been channelled to provide a detailed understanding of these issues. The editors have also provided a challenging Conclusion that suggests a new research agenda that could well unravel some of the mysteries associated with clustering. This edited collection will be of interest to international researchers, academics and students in the fields of business and management history, innovation, industrialisation and clusters.

Download or read book Innovative Clusters written by Svend Remøe and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policies to stimulate innovation at national and local levels must both build on and contribute to the dynamics of innovative clusters. This book presents a series of papers written by policy makers and academic experts in the field, that demonstrate why and how this can be done.

Download or read book Innovation and the Development Agenda written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2010-08-12 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Innovation drives long-term economic growth. This book examines the role of innovation in developing countries, with a focus on Africa.

Download or read book Putting Africa First written by Mammo Muchie and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expression 'national systems of innovation' was introduced in the 1980s to emphasize the interdependence between technical and institutional change. For many reasons, the work on Africa is especially important. The prevalence and persistence of conflict, poverty and poor governance on the African continent is widely considered to be the most urgent global development issue today. This volume brings together a selection of original contributions, which analyze African economic issues within the theoretical framework of 'innovation systems'. With its combination of conceptual, policy oriented, empirical, and cross-regional analyses the book should appeal to scholars, policy makers, and development practitioners along with other students of economic affairs.

Download or read book Knowledge Technology and Cluster based Growth in Africa written by Douglas Zhihua Zeng and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa is on the move, demonstrating in recent years a significant potential for economic growth. Although the region still faces many challenges, it is also generating pockets of economic vitality in the form of enterprise clusters that are contributing to national, regional, and local productivity. Through case examples from Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda, this book provides an understanding of how these dynamic enterprise clusters were formed and have evolved, and how knowledge, human capital, and technology have contributed to their success.