It’s not possible to innovate people out of poverty
by Tom Murphy for Humanosphere
commentary by Cilas Kemedjio
This article points out that “innovation” is the new path to paradise in Africa. Yet it also makes us question whether, when it comes to solving intractable problems on the continent as well as in poor communities around the world, the rich really want to find sustainable solutions. Here, since development, economic adjustment, good governance programs, democracy, respect for human rights, and other “solutions” have proved unsustainable, so-called experts are searching for a new fix. It’s always about the magic wand, and the next, and the next, with no accountability when it does not work.
commentary by Akosua Adomako Ampofo
It was the early 1990s. In Ghana we were about half a decade into the Structural Adjustment Program that was meant to place us back on even keel. The medicine introduced to heal our economy, some contended, was a lot more severe than the disease. This was the time when smiling, semi-naked black children graced the cover of a World Bank publication—here was poverty glorified for your coffee table. It was also the time when a World Bank memo asserting that it was best to shift support from Higher Education in Ghana to basic education was “leaked” to some of us at the University of Ghana. Poor people did not deserve higher education, or perhaps they simply didn’t know what to do with it. (The Bank subsequently intimated the memo was not the official viewpoint.)
Here we are 25 years later with another glorified model for fixing poverty—innovation, and its twin, entrepreneurship, both close relatives to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) project. Colorful snippets of amazing projects that have been initiated by young Africans circulate in social media portraying the miracles of innovation—bamboo bikes, shoes made from recycled plastic, mobile applications. Both of those words, innovation and entrepreneurship, have found their way on to university curricula. Indeed the Bank, who had earlier decried investment in higher education, recanted and by the 2000s insisted that African countries would not climb out of poverty if they didn’t invest in higher education. Further, it was the twins of innovation and entrepreneurship, together with their close cousin STEM, that would carry us out of poverty. STEM is important. Innovation and entrepreneurship are very important. The young people who are building products and services that meet the needs of millions of “ordinary” people, despite the economic odds, deserve our applause and gratitude. But commitment to improving the lives of people so that they move from mere survival to a quality of life that is human is not about magic bullets. It’s not about one flavor today, and another tomorrow. It’s about accountability of governments, external players such as the Bank, well-intentioned ‘supporters’. It’s about recognizing our innovations not compelling to do innovation and entrepreneurship according to someone else’s model of what works best for Africa. But it might be hard to have an accountability when it might mean supporting the many innovative methods of safe agriculture that take Monsanto, for example, out of the equation.
Right on.