Distributed and Bottom-Up Investments to Promote Innovation for Inclusive Industrialization

Democratic South Africa was successful in setting up a policy position and direction to promote innovation for inclusive industrialization. However, policy implementation has met with a fragmented economic system, slowing down the pace significantly. Essentially, the policy approach appears to assume that there is fertile ground for implementation, whereas the declining levels of innovation and deindustrialization suggest that the ground is infertile. Under this premise, the likelihood of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 is low. Fragmentation, the dominant character of the South African economy, has historical bearings, whereby the large African majority are at the periphery of productive economic activities. Successful sustainable development would have to resolve this dominant unequal paradigm, which is not sustainable. The research develops a distributed approach to investment in innovation and industrialization, giving priority to grassroots innovation actors. The first stage of the national system of innovation (NSI), which was more top-down, offers a conceptual lens for organizing and stimulating innovation. It provides the segue to the next phase – a distributed approach and furthering the mindset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The approach will enhance innovation capabilities among innovation actors, thus capacitating them for the SDGs. Considering their significant contribution to the COVID-19 global economic recovery, the emphasis is on growing the proportion of manufactured medium- and high-tech products. Therefore, resources acquired through partnerships are to be allocated toward distributed investment rather than short-term outlook initiatives. The presented approach will further catalyze innovation for inclusive industrialization. The research is unique because it leverages distributed thinking in the 4IR era.