The Sunday Mail
“The mining sector will be the centrepiece of our economic recovery and growth. It should generate growth spurts across sectors; reignite that economic miracle which must now happen … we need to explore new deposits, developing new greenfield projects in the mining sector. Above all, we need to move purposefully towards beneficiation of our raw minerals.” — President Mugabe
This is what our country and the rest of Africa is known for: being resource-rich and laden with raw materials.
Will the resources last forever? The reality is that they will not.
Zimbabwe needs a long-term plan, spanning beyond the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation’s five years, which — in my opinion — should mark the beginning of a 30-year plan.
Zimbabwe is, no doubt, a resource-based economy. We dig, grow, and send the results outside the country. There is no value added to what we export.
The resource-based product that Zimbabwe exports is used to create value goods in other countries, which in turn sell the goods to us.
The model works well as long as the value of the products we buy back is less than what we sell, which is not the case.
And rightly so, one of the clusters under Zim-Asset seeks to correct this.
With the rate of our population growth, import demand will significantly increase and our resources will eventually diminish.
A lot of arguments, many of them valid, have been raised as to Zimbabwe’s best way forward.
Regardless of the time limitation defined by Zim-Asset, we need to take value addition seriously since the continued exportation of our resources with little or no beneficiation has serious negative implications on the socio-economic development of the country.
Statistics for 2012 show that Zimbabwe had a trade deficit of US$3,6 billion, having imported goods to the tune of US$7,4 billion and exported a measly US$3,8 billion worth.
On the basis of the loud and clear ambitions of value addition and beneficiation as enshrined in the Zim-Asset policy document, there is a fervent call to focus on how innovation can be deep-rooted in the socio-economic activities and processes of the country.
Value addition and beneficiation come with another aspect — that of intellectual property.
Innovation in Zimbabwe has consistently taken a back seat to short-term goals, a good example being fixation with five-year plans.
Things clearly need to change to ensure we capture the ideas of our greatest minds and make the most of them.
And it is not just the creation of intellectual property but the commercialisation of it. Licensing should play a major role in this.
Already, licensing impacts almost all aspects of our daily lives.
From entertainment to medicine, from what we eat to what we wear, licensing is the catalyst that enables the development and transfer of knowledge, technology, content and value across industries and borders.
With our limited infrastructure, Zimbabwe’s industry should focus on developing smart solutions that, for a start, can be licensed locally and to other countries that already have productive industries.
Previously, taking intellectual property to emerging economies such as China has been a daunting prospect, with rumours endemic about intellectual property theft.
And currently the global market is shifting to support a knowledge-based economy, with the major emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil strengthening their intellectual property laws. A very good talking point is Brazil, which just last year completed the reform of its patents system to suit local needs.
Zimbabwe has immense potential and can generate new ideas and technologies, which – after protection – we can license for a share of the value generated by licences.
Of course, this is not an overnight jaunt since it also requires reasonable investment of time, effort, and human and financial resources.
This is especially true when we look at value addition and beneficiation from a minerals point of view.
We must get the right structures in place to drive innovation.
A national intellectual property strategy and policy is the first step. The national intellectual property policy, if well-structured, creates a stable and predictable investment climate that also brings through FDI.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s annual publication, “Global Innovation Index Report”, Zimbabwe ranks very low as regards to innovation and technological development.
Against this background, it is crucial for the country to establish smart strategies aimed at ensuring that as a nation, we raise our standards of innovation and compete with other knowledge economies around the world.
We must come to terms with the fact that much of our innovation efforts will struggle to deliver the expected benefits quickly in a global context if they are not based on sound intellectual property rights.
Such a strategy would also significantly raise our country profile and understanding of intellectual property and provide a springboard for its more effective use.
Let us take a leaf from South Korea, which through a systematic economic and trade development policy – including heavy investment in capacity building, human resources development, incentives for technological innovation and development of domestic intellectual property assets – transformed itself from an agrarian economy into a highly industrialised country over the last few decades.
While it is clear that the creation of a true knowledge-based economy is not an overnight escapade, even small, positive steps will go some way to securing our future.
Our local technological institutions have the potential to take not just small steps, but to progress in leaps and bounds if only they are given the opportunity through increased funding.
Another key aspect is the need to promote capacity building through institutions like the Research Council of Zimbabwe, the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre, the National University of Science and Technology, and the Chinhoyi University of Technology, among others, and linking them to industry through a national intellectual property policy. It is a matter of playing to our strengths because Zimbabwe has some very innovative minds. What we need to do is capture that innovation and commercialise it in the most productive way.
Simbarashe Makahamadze is an intellectual property expert. He writes in his personal capacity.
