Africa must develop relevant knowledge for its problems

Abstract

In a session titled “Knowledge Generation for Structural Transformation”, Nkosana Moyo, the Executive Chair of Mandela Institute for Development Studies in South Africa, said that leaders should desist from the “laziness” of simply adapting policies from the developed world and instead develop locally researched policies. Africa continuously suffers from a “copy-paste” pattern of policy implementation, which prevents it from realizing relevant solutions to persistent problems like poverty and unemployment. Gunilla Carlsson, former Minister for International Development Cooperation in Sweden, said that before Europe transformed into a developed world, it faced many challenges in the earlier centuries, most of which Africa also faces today. She said that political leaders in Africa should pick some lessons from Europe, but must first of all provide a favorable environment for innovativeness and allow their citizens to participate in nation-building.