Governments have a strong role in driving technological ecosystem growth, says the Managing Director of Kigali Innovation City, Linda Tesi Rusagara.

Explaining governments’ role in supporting the technological ecosystem in three points, she explained that governments have to patronise, appropriately regulate and financially support innovations within their jurisdictions.

Speaking at the maiden edition of the Ghana Digital Innovation Week, Linda Rusagara stated that governments can support growth by being a customer of homegrown innovation.

According to her, “Africa needs locally rooted solutions, and the public sector is one of the biggest spenders in Africa. However, when you look at most of our public procurement systems, they’re not geared for innovation.”

She thus called for a drastic change in how public procurements are being done such that future procurements favour homegrown solutions.

Citing an example from her home country, Rwanda, she said, “In Rwanda, our Ministry of ICT and Innovation has been piloting a procurement for innovation policy. So how does this work? Instead of tendering out an RFP with specifications looking for exactly what you want, you tender out the problem, and you allow innovators to present how they would solve this problem and how to co-develop and co-create those solutions with you, based on your unique problem statements.”

Linda Tesi Rusagara also called on governments to ensure their local policy regulatory landscape constantly evolves to meet the demands of innovations.

“Policies and regulations usually lack innovation, but innovation also provides an opportunity for progressive policymaking,” she said.

According to her, often governments do not have appropriate policies to cover certain aspects of digitalisation and innovation; thus, the introduction of these innovations offers a pathway to adopt and or create policies and regulatory frameworks that respond to the needs of the innovation.

“When Zipline, the drone company currently operating in both Rwanda and GhanaGhna came to Rwanda, we didn’t have any regulations or policies on drones. But this allowed us to co-create those regulations,” she gave an example.

She, however, expressed concern about the lack of risk financing and domestic sources of finances in African countries.

According to her, these limit the growth of ecosystems and prevent innovative ideas from getting into the market.  

“Typically, when a foreign venture capitalist is looking at a market, they will also ask who else is investing. So if you don’t have your local investors, your angel networks, local fund managers in your ecosystem, it limits how much they too will invest, and how much confidence they’ll have in our ecosystems,” she expressed.

The Ghana Digital Innovation Week seeks to celebrate the accomplishments of Ghana’s digital innovation ecosystem and build momentum towards a shared vision for its future development.

This grand venture is part of trilateral cooperation between Ghana, Germany, and Israel on innovation and development to promote government-level awareness for digital innovation while also adding impetus to the growth of the digital innovation ecosystem in Ghana.