Agents of Technology Localization in East Africa: Case Studies of Social Enterprises in Tanzania

Abstract

Technology localization refers to activities that seek to make particular technologies locally functional and locally embedded in order to overcome resistance to their adoption. These activities can be described as diffusion, institutional support, and technical adaptation. In developing societies that face experiences of resistance to technological change, several organizational agents could serve as agents of localization. This paper showcases a number of social enterprises in East Africa – particularly in Tanzania – that are involved in localizing technologies for sustainable energy and agricultural mechanization. Field data were collected between December 2014 and September 2015. Staff, clients and partners of the social enterprises were interviewed. In addition, field observations and a scan of accessible reports and documents of social enterprises and their partner organizations took place. The cases demonstrate technology localization activities and assess the effectiveness of these social enterprises as agents of localization. The study concluded that, given appropriate tools and context, such as engaging early adopters of innovation and staying attuned to feedback from local communities, social enterprises can be effective agents of technology localization.

Keywords:

• Technology localization
• technological change
• social enterprises
• Tanzania
• diffusion of innovations

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Nonita Yap, Adam Sneyd, Kirit Patel and Rumina Dhalla, for their valuable comments on the study, in its earlier drafts (as part of a doctoral dissertation draft). Those comments helped improve the paper on multiple aspects. Special thanks are also due to the research participants, from the many organizations and communities in Tanzania, who gave us much of their time and attention, and entrusted us with information, thoughts and some personal stories. We are grateful, and we hope that their generosity finds reward in many ways.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Gussai Sheikheldin is a research fellow at the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Research Organization (STIPRO), an independent think tank based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Dr. John Devlin is an associate professor at the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD), University of Guelph.

Notes

1 By ‘subinvention’ Binswanger seems to refer to inventions that modify or change only parts of the machine or unit rather than the whole machine. For example, the invention of the automatic transmission in automobiles, in the 1950s, was a subinvention in the sense that it did not change the automobile or the function of the transmission itself in it, but rather invented a new part that substituted an older one within the same machine. It is similar to how Rosenberg (1982) distinguishes between inventions and innovations. Other similar terms to subinventions: upgrades, derivative inventions, or secondary inventions.

2 The cases did not include known/conventional cooperatives in Tanzania or East Africa, although definitions of SEs tend to include cooperatives. The assumption that we made for the field study was that cooperatives are too big in age, proliferation and influence to be included in a field study of social enterprises. That is so particularly because social enterprises (save cooperatives) are generally still a recent phenomenon in developing societies, contested in theory and yet immature in practice. Cooperatives, on the other hand, are quite established in Tanzania and East Africa, and have been so for decades (Coulson, 1982). The assumption we made was consistent with the observation that we never heard anyone in Tanzania – native or foreigner – refer to cooperatives among the Tanzanian social enterprises. That may very well be the case in the rest of East Africa, and at even the global scale, since cooperatives are significantly older in origin than all other forms of social enterprise.

3 Arusha, Tanzania has a large scene of development organizations, international, regional and local. Authors knew of this beforehand and chose Arusha as base because of it.

4 The description of the rafiki network here is according to how it functioned up to the conclusion of the field research activities. The network underwent changes afterwards, but were not reflected in the data collected from the field.

5 Tanzania Electric Supply Company Ltd. (TANESCO), and Rural Energy Agency (REA).

6 However, based on interviews with rafikis from Morogoro region, the competitor lanterns are lower in price than the ones marketed by GCS, so some people still buy them because of affordability.

7 The closest example for a legal registration as a social enterprise, among the explored SE cases in Tanzania and East Africa, was the case of Kakute’s registration – registered as a company limited by guarantee (LBG), which is a form of registration often used by non-profit organizations that need/want to have legal personality. Instead of shareholders, such organizations have guarantors. In the cases where some profits are made from any project/venture, they are generally reinvested in the company.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by IDRC, Canada, through a doctoral research award [No. 107473-99906075-068].