Measuring Innovation in the Water Sector to support Monitoring and Evaluation of Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA) 2024: The Case study of Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Accelerating Africa’s transition from a resource-based economy to the knowledge-based economy is the aim of the Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA) 2024, which is an African Union Commission (AUC) ten years program. Before STISA, the Consolidated Plan of Action (CPA), developed with the same intention, was implemented with the absence of a precise Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system. Based on lessons learned from the CPA experience, the need for M&E system has become a necessity for better implementation and achievement of the goals of STISA. In this context, an M&E tool was developed to measure innovation in the water sector for sustainable agriculture, which is one of the flagship programs of STISA. To achieve that objective, a desk review was conducted for a better understanding of innovation in agricultural water management. Also, an innovation measurement framework was developed and tested through a survey with a focus on product and process innovation. The test survey was conducted by addressing a designed questionnaire based on the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) within a reference period 2016 to 2018 inclusive, to public and private sector units. This survey helped to modify and adapt the CIS questionnaire in the context of measuring innovation in water management in agriculture (sustainable) at the supply and demand side. The results showed that the framework could be applied to measure innovation in the public and private sectors, in line with the latest definition in the Oslo Manual, 2018. A set of key success indicators was derived from the results, which would help to quantify the innovation progress in the concerned domain. This framework is designed to be used for innovation measurement at the national level, and a guideline was proposed for its good use