Conference Proposes Innovative Solutions for Efficient Service Delivery in South Africa

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The Conference on Public Innovation, Development and Sustainability took place at the Garden Court Conference Centre in Durban, under the theme: “Rethinking Innovation and Development in the (Post)-Crisis World”, as an outcome of a three-year venture labelled as Project 3 of the Viability and Validation of Innovation for Service Delivery Programme (VVISDP).

This project is implemented by the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

VVISDP is the initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) implemented in partnership with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), funded by the National Treasury of South Africa and the European Union Sector Budget Support Programme that seeks to help municipalities pilot technology and innovations that could assist them in improving basic service delivery.

The Conference on Public Innovation, Development and Sustainability interrogates the role of innovation in responding to the recent crises, ranging from financial to political spheres, that have struck the world since the Great Recession of 2008 with huge and long-lasting impacts on the economies of both developed and developing countries. The conference brought together stakeholders from different sectors including, but not necessarily limited to academia, government officials, and the private sector, to share ideas and collaborate on the utilities of innovation as primer of- and implementor for improved delivery of basic services.

Professor Ernest Nene Khalema, the Dean and Head of School at the UKZN School of Built Environment and Development Studies (SOBEDS), emphasised the significance of the platforms that assemble different stakeholders to converge on ideas envisioned.

Professor Sithembiso Myeni from the School of Built Environment and Development Studies (SOBEDS) emphasised the significance of collaboration across different sectors in addressing societal issues. ‘This conference marks a critical moment for our collective journey to re-imagine the future of public innovation grounded on the co-creation and co-production of knowledge,’ he said.

Dr Tshepang Mosiea, Chief Director of Innovation for Inclusive Development at the DSI, shared the same sentiments, affirming the need for research to enrich decision-making and provide evidence-based policies in government. ‘I think we have found a formula for partnership and a way to work with academia and come to a space where we can co-create ideas and discuss research, development and innovation in the context of policy formulation,’ he said.

Transforming public institutions occupied centre stage as Nora Clinton, Head of Mission-Oriented Innovation Network at the University College London (UCL) Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, shared insights on the necessity for rethinking, reforming and renewing the state and mandate in the facing the evolution of grand societal challenges. Paramount to this transformation process is the missions-oriented approach premised on creating sustainable public value. The missions-oriented approach entails breaking down grand societal challenges into their constituents and creating policies to guide those objectives towards addressing the broader challenges.

Progress thus far and future trends in the context of South Africa’s Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy were presented as Dr Mlungisi Cele, Chief Executive Officer of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACi), unpacked the STI vision of enabling sustainable and inclusive development in this changing world. He emphasised the need to strengthen the National System of Innovation (NSI) and continued desire to support the institutions to build and develop research capacity and high-end scarce skills.

On the other hand, Professor Johan Schot, from the Centre for Global Challenges at Utrecht University, emphasised transformative change through Transformative Innovation Policy as a path for aligning STI policies with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and bringing policies that focus on systems’ change.

Councillor Nkosenhle Madlala highlighted the important avenues that eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality has taken to embrace and integrate innovation through automation. Innovation has the potential to promote legitimacy, trust and transparency in decision making as a workshop on e-Participation in South African Municipalities hosted on the sidelines of the conference illustrated. In addition, this workshop aimed to advance and align community participation and channel the proliferation of information and communication technologies across media and demographics to enhance community engagement.

The Organising Committee planned this meeting with different expectations based on the stakeholders invited. As a group, the conference participants exchanged ideas about themes and returned with innovative approaches and/ or renewed thoughts to their respective local institutions on how innovation can be used to improve and accelerate inclusive service delivery and democratic participation in South Africa through co-creation and co-production of knowledge. In particular, the researchers strengthened their collaboration across disciplines and fields of expertise between the academia and other stakeholders.

In doing so, they broke the perceived or real barriers between the researchers and the other stakeholders. Government officials contributed to the debates with their insiders’ knowledge of the challenges of service delivery and its expectations from intended beneficiaries as the primary policy objectives in different political manifestos and subsequent initiatives to honour those social contracts to discharge their obligations to their constituent communities.

They received evidence-based perspectives on the roles of innovation for service delivery and inclusive development. The private sector also contributed to the two-day debates with its own interpretation of the challenges of insufficient or absence of inclusive service delivery and development in their search for return on investment through public-private partnership.

Words: NdabaOnline

Photograph: Supplied