can be said to be counterintuitive<\/span><\/a> to technological growth and development. This is due to the politicisation of public institutions meant to facilitate growth and development.<\/p>\nPolitical cycles and changes in government has resulted in short term outlooks and politicisation that undermine the institutional stability, consistency and continuity necessary for technological growth and development.<\/p>\n
The result is that instead of building on pre-existing bodies, knowledge and expertise, governments are more likely to create new units or institutions staffed by loyalists, with little or no knowledge and expertise having to play catch-up. Civil and public servants who remain in post are incapacitated due to the fear of being witch-hunted.<\/p>\n
The non-partisan nature of a think tank, however, endears it to all sides of the political divide, giving it the opportunity to advocate for the right, evidence-informed<\/em> policy interventions.<\/p>\nFacilitating faster and more impactful change<\/h2>\n
Think tanks have access to the necessary resources, can harness multi-stakeholder interest, generate buy-in, and drive implementation of identified technology agendas.<\/p>\n
For instance, as a think tank working on data protection and privacy in Africa, in the last two years, the Africa Digital Rights\u2019 Hub has driven an agenda of ensuring data protection in the development and use of digital IDs. It has led discussions, got stakeholder buy-in and published
\na Data Protection Code of Practice for Digital IDs in Africa. In the last year, Africa has seen an increase in similar discussion from key industry, local and international platforms.<\/p>\n
Think tanks\u2019 ability to drive policy on technology cannot be underestimated. For Africa it is a strategic part of the drive to attain socioeconomic development through technological growth and development. It is therefore critical that think tanks recognise their role in the ecosystem and intensify their drive for technological development on the continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a technology enthusiast, I am an ardent believer that Africa\u2019s socio-economic development is firmly linked to her technological development, growth and advancement. And the opportunity to work for the Government of Ghana under its Information and Communications Technologies for Accelerated Development Policy (ICT4AD) came with a lot of excitement. But after more than a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[207,403,868,2634],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}