Indigenous Systems of Innovation in East Africa

The growing population of Tanzania increasingly make their livelihood on the basis of production and exchange of goods and services from the expanding informal sector, the technologies of which are perceived as simple/low in contrast to those of the receding formal sector, which are regarded as advanced/high. The project is challenging these notions. The objectives are (i) to highlight the dynamism of selected indigenous systems of innovation in rural East Africa, initially in Tanzania; (ii) to explicate possible policies and interventions that may facilitate mobilization of the technological knowledge and organizational capabilities of indigenous artisans; (iii) to contribute to a changed theoretical paradigm in technology studies in the South. The preliminary findings show that a significant social and productive potential in the informal sector is being disregarded and not considered in whatever policy making there is. The local indigenous technological capacity is being arrested despite the many bilateral and multilateral efforts made to bring about technology change in the South. (Pernille Bertelsen, Jens Müller; in collaboration with Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam; Institute of Development Management, Tanzania)