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Some reflections on East African activities in clustering

Following the regional conference in Bagamoyo in February last year, an action plan had been prepared and resulted now in a workshop for the national stakeholders, organized by the University of Dar es Salaam.

Background
The 6th TCI Conference which was held in Gothenburg in September 2003 was visited by ten representatives from Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. The main focus of the Gothenburg Conference was the development of methodologies and policies for building innovative clusters and innovation systems.

Inspired by the experiences and the results of the Gothenburg Conference the three universities concerned from Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda decided to organize a regional conference, held in Bagamoyo in February 2004. One of the hoped for outcomes of the Bagamoyo conference was an Action Plan to promote the development of innovation systems and an innovative cluster policy to speed up industrial and economic growth in East Africa.

Implementation of an Action Plan in Tanzania
The implementation of an Action Plan entailed the establishment of an Innovation Systems and Clusters Programme (ISCP-Tz). In order to get stakeholders' participation in the establishment and implementation of the ISCP the Prospective College of Engineering and Technology (pCET) of the University of Dar es Salaam decided to organize a National Stakeholders Workshop on January 24 - 25, 2005.

National Stakeholder Workshop in Bagamoyo - some reflections
There were 59 participants from Tanzania, 2 from Sweden and 1 from Nigeria who attended the workshop. Approximately 70% of the participants originated from Academia, 15% from Industry and 15% from Government.

In the Tanzanian context, university and research institutes seem to be, compared to industrialized countries, the initial leading force in clustering. On the other hand the recommendations found in textbooks and the experiences from policy studies on clusters and innovation system are to put companies in focus as the prime drivers for productivity and growth.
The cluster cases which were presented are all in an early stage with a weak or absent business sector. The university and the research institutes must then fill in the gap and offer promotion and training of entrepreneurship as well as support to the existing companies to improve their operations. From now on this must be an important role for the university and research institutes clustering work. One suggestion might be to set up multi skilled R&D team to meet growing companies present and potential needs. Thus, in the early stages of forming an innovation system, the R&D sector has a responsibility to support entrepreneurs as well as taking an initial lead in strategy, planning and organizing activities. R&D institutions should also be aware of the learning mechanism, be able to train, to coach, to evolve tacit knowledge, and to establish a feed back system of information, experiences and knowledge including participants in every part of the system.

Another observation from the cases presented might be to set up a portfolio of pilot projects as a strategy to learn and improve programmes on development of innovation systems adapted to the Tanzanian context.

The vision of 2025 for Tanzania demands change. Clustering and development of innovation systems may be a strategic tool to realize the vision. The challenge is that these change processes take time and call for a long-term commitment from the Government in its scientific and industrial policies.

In April 28 - 30 the University of Eduardo Mondlane has planned to organize another follow-up regional conference in Mozambique.