Why Africa needs more think tanks, not just few

Morrison Rwakakamba

Delivered by Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, the 2017 Global Think Tank index is out. Looking at the footprint and atlas of think tanks and their correlation with level development across continents on earth, the view that knowledge is not number one ingredient of prosperity is banished.

For example, 26.2% of think tanks are in Europe, 25.2% in North America, 20.7% in Asia, 12.5% in South America and 8.5% in sub-Saharan Africa.

Indeed, the 2016 International Monetary Fund (IMF) datasets show that Asia's GDP was at $27,222b, North America $21,260b, Europe $19,070b, South America $3,940b, Africa $2,190b and Oceania $1,468b. Although we see slight non-exacts, the trend validates the view that thinking nations create and execute smarter policies that propel, expand and sustain growth and development.

In Uganda, the thought documents anchoring decisions on choice of national investment are the National Resistance Movement Manifesto and Vision 2040. How Uganda's burgeoning yet nascent think tank industry feeds into this is critical to any move pointing to envisaged transition to knowledge and First World country.

There is good news here. Uganda's Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) has for the 6th consecutive year been ranked as one of the top 100 think tanks in the world.

ACODE was ranked number one in Uganda and number 22 out of 90 top think-tanks in Africa. Their work in general public policy advocacy, but specifically local government scorecards that have seen improvements in leadership and administrative efficiency in districts was headlined. Uganda needs more ACODEs and not few!

It is also interesting that beyond historic brain trusts led by university system, think tanks on various issues have been mushrooming and thriving in Uganda. Think tanks are organisations that perform research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology and culture, among others.

Historian Jacob Soll of University of Southern California explains "think tank" as modern, but "it can be traced to the humanist academies and scholarly networks of the 16th and 17th centuries. "Soll notes "in Europe, the origins of think tanks go back to the 800s, when emperors and kings began arguing with the Catholic Church about taxes.

A tradition of hiring teams of independent lawyers to advise monarchs about their financial and political prerogatives against the Church spans from Charlemagne all the way to the 17th century, when the kings of France were still arguing about whether they had the right to appoint bishops and receive a cut of their income (Wikipedia). Recently,
The Economist described "good think tanks" as those organisations that are able to combine "intellectual depth, political influence and flair for publicity, comfortable surroundings and a streak of eccentricity."

Beyond this mostly antiquated articulation, there are deep-rooted historical traces of think tanking in Africa. Perhaps less inclusive, think of those elder fireplace conversations in your villages about people issues in those communities! Now various associations on different issues and sectors are convening in evenings at cafes, porches etc. thinking about things. The challenge for us - in Uganda, is that we have had weak documentation - and, therefore, critical and transformational thoughts get lost! How can we find them? Let us document for ourselves and the future. Bigly, transformation rests on this.

But let us dive deeper. To really understand where we are as a country on parameter of a thinking nation, one needs to keenly look at Vision 2040. Although the document presents some concrete and imaginative work, it is weak on one prime benchmark central to achieving an integrated first world economy by 2040 - knowledge! The plan and role of knowledge as propeller of new age transformation is not clearly articulated.

Over the years, strategy, planning and funding (investment) for research and innovation has been weak. Former US Vice-President, Joe Biden, once remarked "Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value." Do we deeply value knowledge/ideas in this country?

A study by James Otieno Jowi and Milton Obamba on research and innovation management in Uganda, Ghana and Kenya concludes that most persistent weakness for the mentioned countries is weak financing systems for knowledge production that are mostly dependent on unpredictable international donations and lack of national and institutional policies and programmes that stimulate collaboration and knowledge exchange between research subsystems and the industrial and business subsystems.

So, how will we then achieve a knowledge economy if we do not make knowledge a priority? Make no mistake, even the more practical and mass empowering manufacturing sector only works to full capacity when powered by knowledge to drive innovations, efficiency and competitiveness.

I know the Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development funds, to some extent, the Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC). This tendency should be democratised to include more think tanks working on different issues without compromising their independence.

For a country with a strong military, it is strange that research and innovations for development is lagging behind. Militaries all over the world retain a rich history of research driven advancement and innovations and continue to mostly lead on cutting edge technology. Perhaps now, the challenge is to harness the vast reservoir of knowledge, information and associational energy into practical inputs for public good.
 
For think-tanks to succeed, they will need to work closely and creatively with the most powerful force ever created by man - the government. Some of the key institutions these think-tanks should work with are the National Planning Authority, Parliament and Office of the President.

These are institutions at the centre of planning and forecasting for the future, legislating and acting on the present. For think tanks to be effective, they will by and large require to put people at the centre of their work. Think tanks should pull over and ally with those governing to help reform public policy and work for the greater good.

The writer a coffee farmer of Nyamubogore village, Nyeibingo parish, Kebisoni in Rukungiri.