THE critical role of technological advancement in achieving societal progress and economic prosperity is now well acknowledged. Furthermore, it can be observed that all wealthy nations are not necessarily technologically advanced, but technologically advanced countries are demonstratively rich. Besides, the current industrialization vista shows that the real “gap” between developed, and the developing economies is in fact their “industrial technology innovation capacity gap.”
Given all this empirical evidence, development planners widely affirm that national technological innovation capacity building should be the cornerstone for achieving sustainable economic prosperity. Yet, the most consequential existential issue faced by all developing nations in the current visibly unsympathetic global-political-economic milieu is “how to expeditiously arrest and reverse the ever-widening prosperity-gap between ‘now’ emerging and ‘already’ industrialized nations?”
Therefore, there is increasing conviction among emerging economies that, in the present-day intertwined competitive global market setting, strategically focused “technology innovation management for national industries globalization” could provide the impetus for robust economic growth essential for both “catching-up and leapfrogging” toward their economic prosperity ambition.
Elements of the national technology innovation system infrastructure in terms of institutions do exist in most emerging economies, but often there is a lack of evidence on concerted activities for prioritized industries globalization strategy. Many S&T and R&D institutions appear to lack “minimum critical mass” of expertise, equipment and money. Also, national R&D investment is diffused, lack strategic intent and are almost insignificant to foster national industries globalization. National Research Universities’ core areas of excellence and local State-of-the-art R&D Laboratories’ practiced areas of preeminence have wide disparity and interest mismatch, thereby leading to lack of synergy in areas of industry focus.
The absence of the full complement of “active intermediaries” for the transfer and commercialization of R&D results is a serious limitation. Specifically missing are local “Design Engineering” and “Machine Tool Building” enterprises. In addition to the lack of effective functioning “Incubators and Startup” companies, the absence of successful “Public Private Partnership Projects” for creating nationally owned “Global Corporations” are major shortcomings. The absence of potent legally bound project contracts for promoting collaboration among innovation partners is a serious policy infrastructure flaw. While in the developed economies the market mechanism is the driver for promoting collaboration, government policies and incentives which can trigger and strengthen collaboration are either absent or ineffective in developing countries. Usually, “Innovation Stakeholder Collaborations” are managed through “High-Powered Councils or Committees” with inactive Ex-Officio members. Meetings are regularly held to foster linkages among stakeholders, but little progress is made.
From the deliberations of four recently concluded “Heads of State Summit Meetings” — (1) the East Asia Summit (Cambodia), 13 November 2022; (2) G20 Summit (Indonesia), 15-16 November 2022; (3) Climate Change “COP27” (Egypt), 6-18 November 2022; and (4) the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Meeting (Thailand), 16-19 November 2023 — leaders of the Asian developing nations must have learned that “International Development Finance Programs” would use the principle of “Burden Sharing Partnership and Mutual Benefits Reciprocity” as the qualifying criteria for assistance from industrialized countries to developing nations. The downside of this approach would be the loss of autonomous decision-making in Asian developing countries. This would inevitably reinforce their dependency on the industrialized countries for charting sustainable development initiatives.
Moreover, experience shows that nations are respected globally only when they are seen capable of achieving sustained economic growth and social equity through their own efforts. Mutual respect gives greater bargaining power for successful global business endeavors and positive international trade balance which are essential prerequisites for achieving significantly high economic growth. In such a world setting, a plausible framework for “autonomous and sustainable” economic development that could lead to “successful prosperity gap reduction” has to necessarily be based on “self-engineered industrial technology innovation initiatives” that are strategic.
In the present-day geopolitical setting, where international development assistance is biased in favor of a consumption-orientation focus than an industrial technology capacity development focus, emerging economies have really no choice but to rely on “self-engineered industrial technology innovation initiatives” to achieve robust and sustainable economic growth. By embracing self-engineering, which is taking responsibility for own future; they can gain global respect and unlock the path to real progress and prosperity.
The initiatives for the successful implementation of a “Self-Engineered Industrialization Action Plan” should be determined via a democratic process of “National Conversation Exercise” that would encourage and guide national industrial enterprises to produce some high-demand globally competitive existing products for international trade. Additionally, it should also lay the foundation to enable successful national small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) to strive to become successful global corporations rooted in the “New Era Industry 4.0” type ventures.
—The author is a former Director of UN-ESCAP’s Asian and Pacific Centre for Technology Transfer (APCTT) and an Adjunct Professor of COMSATS University of Islamabad (CUI).
