Innovation in low income countries: A survey report

2014

English

For countries at the bottom of the development pyramid, technological innovation is decisive for industrialisation and catch-up. Technological innovation has, however, been traditionally concentrated in a few developed countries given the costs and risks involved in fomenting technological advances. Foreign sources of technology account for a large part of productivity growth in most countries. Therefore, the development process in low income countries (LICs) can be supported by tapping existing knowledge and know-how. The transfer, adoption and adaptation of knowledge to LICs hence constitute an important issue for economic growth and global development. Technology diffusion and adoption relies on substantial and well-directed technological efforts (Lall, 1992)1 as well as sufficient human and financial resources and absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1989)2 . It requires appropriate institutions and policies to incentivise and facilitate the process in addition to strong local capabilities to identify the right technology and appropriate transfer mechanism, and to absorb and make adaptations according to local economic, social, technical and environmental conditions (Fu et al., 2011)3 . By defining innovation as a new product or process, or new management, organisational or marketing practices (where ‘new’ means new to the world or new to the country or the firm), the Diffusion of Innovation in Low Income Countries project (DILIC) was designed to shed light on this issue investigating the role of innovation in LICs by exploring the nature of innovation in the private sector and the determinant factors and transmission channels for effective innovation creation, diffusion and adoption in LICs under institutional, resource and affordability constraints. It analyses the determinants of knowledge diffusion in LICs from leading innovators to latecomers, in particular the role of university-industry linkage and inter-firm networks. It examines the effect of external knowledge diffusion to LICs, in particular the productivity impact of South-South trade and FDI with a special focus on Chinese trade and FDI in Africa. And, finally, it seeks to develop a SME open innovation network model to increase frugal innovation for the poorer societies in LICs. The DILIC project investigating chose to focus its main research on Ghana in West Africa and this report presents the findings from an innovation survey carried out in Ghana between November 2013 and January 2014. The project was funded by ESRC-DFID and supported by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the Ghanaian government. It included researchers from the University of Oxford (UK), UNU-MERIT (Maastricht), and the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of Ghana

Fu, X.; Zanello, G.; Essegbey, G. O.; Hou, J.; Mohnen, P.