Urgency of Innovation Amongst Ghanaians: An Antidote to Poverty

Individual achievements and successes are not inborn; they are rather earned as one wades through the shackles of life. So is it with innovation. The generic problem in Africa and Ghana to be specific is inclined to our conservatism. Definitely, we are content with the way the economy is going. Any hope for a positive change in future?







Innovation in a generic term is simply a mark of improvement, modernism, advance, originality in the way things are done. Lawson and Samson (2002) define innovation capacity as “…the ability to continuously transform knowledge and ideas into new products, processes and systems for the benefit of an entity”. Most Ghanaians are dormant with respect to the power of generating new ideas and therefore for the past years have failed to spawn new ideas to solving simple as well as pressing issues that confront them. This has therefore culminated into various challenges manifesting and unfolding themselves as intractable at all stages of our lives.

The Change We Need

The past years of my life has witness few changes if any in the way things are done in our part of the world. This stems from the fact that there is no urge of change from the local artisans to the top revered professionals. Innovation is considered to be a key driver of increased productivity and growth. The introduction of new goods and services, as well as novelties in methods of production and non-technological aspects as management and marketing, allowing firms to improve efficiency are all spearheaded by the subject under consideration. The difference between Ghana and Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea (you can add to this list) is not far-fetched. Malaysia at the time of leading the world in the production of Oil Palm convincingly turned its economy into technological developments. Japan was once a major beneficiary of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the 1960s. Today, Japan happens to be the first contributor to ODA for developing countries outwitting even the United States.



It is mostly said that men are not solely the product of our upbringing, conditions or genetic make-up but the effectiveness of our habits and ideas we sit to mop up and put into action. And therefore something can really be done if we as Ghanaians will sacrifice our everything for this challenge.

What do we see instead? Most Ghanaians are not ready to think poles apart from what is exceptionally given them on the first day of work. For this reason, the local draftsman, seamstress, tailor, carpenter, hairdresser, shoemaker and the rest continue to do the same things they came to meet at birth. The will for change as well as introduction to new ideas is simply deficient or unthought-of. In this dispensation where knowledge is becoming an asset and a source of competitive advantage notwithstanding ones educational background, one would have expected improvement on old designs, artifact and local wares but what are we made to believe as Ghanaians, keep our culture. Most people have failed to appreciate the fact that culture is just a way of life within a particular dispensation or circumstances one finds himself and therefore calls for some alteration as our societies grow and become composite and complex in nature.

In the world of today where things keep metamorphosing day in and out, Ghanaians have failed to appreciate this change. There is much empirical research on the contribution of various instances of innovation on productivity and, moreover, on what in turn are the drivers of innovation. The idea is that innovation input (research effort, and sources of knowledge) leads to the generation of knowledge, which may manifest itself in an improved product or better production methods. The country continues to reel under the threats of food insecurity and hunger even when agriculture is booming. The simple explanation is that agriculture has not seen the best of innovation to act as a catalyst for home-grown solutions.

However, in spite of these setbacks, our crave for new products; new things injected into the market scenes are continuously soaring to great heights. These items usually range from new phones, cars, body lotion, foot wares and so on. However, in spite of this, hardly do we ever sit to think and organize our thoughts as to even replicating the way these items are arrived at let alone how such products enter into the producer’s mind. For this reason, students, usually at the tertiary level will school for three to four years without any ulterior motive than to graduate only to be employed by the government. We all lack innovation for just one reason and that is nobody would like to take the risk in trying something new. Consider even bread making in Ghana. Most people are familiar with just about four to five kinds of bread. However, an expository study into baking brings to bare copious kinds of bread which if researched upon and brought to the market will earn people fortunes. Many are the things we as Ghanaians must change to suit ourselves and ultimately extend to others. We should not lose sight of the fact that all the great nations of our time didn’t just become successful by chance; it however took individuals sacrificing their time, risking money and life to bring them to this extent through innovation. Though few Ghanaians try but are nibbed in the bud by budgetary constraints, lack of skills, poor leadership, poor organization, poor communication, misguided empowerment, poor knowledge and the likes, it is time for Ghanaians to take the bull by the horn and effect changes in lives through innovation.

Keeping Hopes Alive

If this seemingly irresistible trend continues without redress, then Ghana is certain to be bedeviled with the old but ravaging problems of poverty, increase in unemployment, low human development and all the other human related problems.

It is in the light of this goings on that the Osagyefo Network for Rural Development (OSNERD) a non partisan non-governmental organization has surfaced on the dot to as much as possible reverse these challenges. By using the necessary avenues like skill and internship training through seminars and educational programmes for the rural folks, the organization is set to revamp the already existing vocations and introduce new prospective fields that have the possibility of bettering the lives of the people especially those in the rural areas. Ghanaians are better than what we think we are. The conditions we find ourselves are not our match and for that matter there exist something good in the black man. The time to rekindle our dormant powers is at hand. Just a slight push from OSNERD will do the trick. OSNERD…. Care for humanity. Together, we can make it.



Stephen Yeboah, National Coordinator, Osagyefo Network for Rural Development ([email protected]); the Founder and International Director, Michael Nkrumah ([email protected])