Promoting alignment between innovation policy and inclusive development in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Innovation for inclusive development (IID) is widely promoted as a policy objective in the global South, but the challenge is that there is little design and implementation of context-appropriate instruments and incentives. One critical foundation is network alignment – that innovation policy should be aligned with the goals and strategies of government departments responsible for promoting inclusive development (Von Tunzelmann, N, 2007. Approaching network alignment. Draft Paper for the U-Know Consortium: Understanding the relationship between knowledge and competitiveness in the enlarging European Union). The paper contributes by using qualitative analysis software to analyse the nature of shared policy goals and instruments in South Africa, and assess how these can be aligned with each other and with the goals of IID. Three main spaces for policy intervention are identified, to promote IID in a way that goes beyond the aspirational and the rhetorical. Such analysis of formal policy does not take into account the political will, capabilities and resources for implementation, but it does provide a systematic evidence base to effect strategic change.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy review
• innovation
• inclusive development
• network alignment
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contribution of two external reviewers of the full research report, Isabel Bortagaray and Susan Cozzens. Their intellectual contributions to enhance the conceptual rigour of the research have been invaluable. Lastly, we acknowledge the team of researchers, Jennifer Rust, Azinga Tele and Andrea Juan, who participated in the data-gathering and analysis process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The term ‘informal sector actors’ is used as a shorthand to refer to individuals or groups operating at the intersection between marginalised households and communities. In South Africa informal actors are characterised by exclusion and marginalisation along gender, race, class, education levels and spatial grounds. Some examples in South Africa include: informal sector enterprises such as township and rural enterprises; new formal sector enterprises such as SMMEs (particularly micro-enterprises) and cooperatives; survivalist enterprises, that is, micro-enterprises aimed at subsistence and generating an income below the poverty line; subsistence farmers; emerging farmers in aquaculture, a priority sector in South Africa; small-scale miners, a priority sector in South Africa; innovators (inventors) in the informal sector; and indigenous knowledge holders.

2 This analysis is based on a word tree of the term development for the sub-set of actors that promote the policy objectives of ‘innovation and development’.

3 The analysis in this section focuses on the strategic objectives related to the type of socio-economic inclusion prioritised. We coded the objectives articulated in the policy texts, and analysed the frequency of key related terms across all policy texts.

Additional information

Funding

The research was conducted for and funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), South Africa. The ideas, opinions, conclusions or policy recommendations expressed in this report are strictly those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent, and should not be presented as, the views of the DST.