Exploring Bottlenecks Towards Accelerating Grassroots Innovation in Namibia

Abstract

Grassroots innovation (GI) provides significant opportunities to develop creative solutions to address challenges of developing economies, like Namibia, where the majority of the people live under difficult economic conditions. Despite substantial research on grassroots innovation, there is still little understanding of the inputs required for its acceleration. This article explores; the existing legislation governing Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in Namibia, concepts of grassroots innovation and techno-entrepreneurship as a premise for mitigating any bottlenecks towards accelerating GI in Namibia. The Honey Bee Network (HBN) approach was employed in ten (10) regions of Namibia, to scout for and document locally designed solutions and traditional knowledge. The HBN framework was specifically used to explore existing bottlenecks to grassroots ideas with the potential to be refined to impact communities in terms of providing solutions to consumer needs through enhanced productivity, sustainability and poverty reduction. The findings of the study revealed that while there were some good grassroots innovation ideas, there is a lack of policy support for these ideas to reach their commercial or non‐commercial potential. It was concluded that there was a need for the services provided by technological business incubators in developing the marketing capabilities of grassroots innovators in Namibia. In light of the findings it is recommended that Namibia develops a National Innovation Strategy, with specific focus on acceleration of grassroots innovation, through establishment of regional makerspaces and provision of Technology Business Incubation (TBI), particularly in rural areas.