Research Question 3: How have Policy Formulation Capabilities Evolved (i.e

Changed) at FMST (since the first S&T policy formulation in 1986) and Why?

The addition of “innovation” to the title of Nigeria’s 2012 S&T policy represents an aspirational step designed to help launch the concept of innovation into the main S&T, public, political and economic discourses of the nation. Evolution in this thesis is based on the broad definition of innovation provided in the Oslo Manual which refers to “new or improved processes”, that is, “newness to the organisation or geographical location”

(OECD, 2005, p.8). In this context, I focus on new, improved or changed policy formulation processes and routines at FMST. I also extend this definition to include

“organisational innovation”¹¹⁰ which according to (OECD, 2005) “may result in significant improvements” in performance (p.8).

A policy process (or routine) that has not changed since its use in the formulation of the first S&T policy of 1986 (or later introduction, prior to 2012) at FMST is recorded in this thesis as “Not Evolved”. With regards to processes that have “Evolved”, I differentiate between two types: incremental and radical innovation. Incremental innovation refers to a process that has received marginal or “more of the same” change, whereas radical innovation refers to a significant degree of change – i.e. transformational change or even a complete overhaul. The findings (presented in Chapter 5, Section 5.2) reveal that seven policy processes “Evolved” while fourteen policy processes were classified as “Not Evolved”. Of the evolved group, none of the innovations exhibited a significant degree of change; therefore, they are deemed to be incremental innovation. Importantly, these policy processes remain informal.

In Section 6.3.1 below, I discuss how the policy processes have evolved at FMST.

6.3.1 Policy Processes that have Evolved

In summarising the findings, this thesis highlights the reasons for the incremental innovation observed in the policy processes and routines that evolved. To reiterate, the seven processes identified as having evolved are: Consultation, Communication, Setting policy priorities, Coordination, Collaboration, Leadership and Management, and

110 Defined as “the introduction of significantly changed organisational structures; the implementation of advanced management techniques; or the implementation of new or substantially changed corporate strategic orientations” (OECD, 2005, p.36-37)

Decision-making; all of which experienced incremental innovation (as presented in Chapter 5, and Table 5.2.8). In addressing Consultation and Communication policy processes the findings reveal that these have remained largely the same – controlled by FMST, passive, non-collaborative and non-interactive in approach – and based on one-way traffic in which FMST invites stakeholders when it deems fit, exchanges ideas on its terms, conditions and timetable, and expects feedback. Therefore, the innovation observed is considered incremental (marginal).

The incremental innovation results from the improved appreciation of the role of stakeholders in the 2012 national STI policy formulation. This was demonstrated in various ways. As discussed earlier, one way was through improved appreciation of stakeholders’ role in the ratification of the STI policy, in which FMST involved 540 delegates. However, in spite of this improved awareness of the role of stakeholders’ in policymaking at FMST, the lack of formal Stakeholder Engagement policy processes with clearly defined routines did not result in perceptible upstream stakeholder engagement.

Clearly defined routines for the identification and selection of the relevant stakeholders based on a clear criterion could have in turn reduced this large number of stakeholders to a number of relevant participants for the STI policy. It is plausible to argue that 540 delegates is a very large group of participants. However, such a large size also has a greater potential of militating against the benefit of obtaining some kind of consensus over the policy goals. The implementation of this Stakeholder Engagement process is aptly described by one of the delegates, who summarised the outcome of the process as:

“The policy ratification exercise was chaotic and extremely expensive. Costs for logistics (transportation, food, hotel, etc.), per diems and honorariums were paid. Planning was inadequate, and management was unwieldy. If every delegate was given one minute to contribute on all the points under deliberation, we would have spent weeks, maybe months, in the ratification exercise alone. I think that 50 key delegates, carefully selected, would have been more productive than 540, the majority of whom played no role” – Professor, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Nigeria.

A significant insight that can be gleaned from the above statement is the need for an organisational capability dedicated to the ratification stage. I refer to this as “Ratification policy process”. Such a policy process would identify and itemise the routines necessary for ratifying a policy. This insight also calls for further development and evolution of

policy processes and routines such as Stakeholder Engagement.

The incremental innovation recorded in Leadership and Management processes and routines relate to FMST’s decision to delegate the bulk of the operations and management of the policy formulation exercise to NACETEM, its agency, while retaining a supervisory role. This more-of-the-same change is an incremental innovation, since the leadership and management continue to reside with FMST. The evolution can also be regarded as an organisational innovation. Similarly, the Decision-making policy process, although still under FMST’s control, received contributions from NACETEM. This again is regarded as an incremental innovation because FMST retains responsibility for the decision-making. Instead a radical innovation in this regard would be, for example, the establishment of an independent decision-making team made up of representatives from the major policy stakeholders (FMST and non-FMST). Such a diverse team can help to improve the possibility of wider participation by ensuring that more diverse stakeholders are involved in the policy processes (Scoones, 2010; Stirling, 2012).

The evolution described above relates to specific policy processes and routines. Below I discuss the main factors that have influenced the evolution of policy capabilities in more general terms. They include:

a) International pressure: The need to “be like other nations”, and to attract international finance and foreign direct investments, and support from donor agencies to meet development aspirations. Interviewees described examples where donors have demanded an up-to-date national S&T policy as a condition for international collaboration. A UNESCO S&T interviewee stated: “in order for UNESCO to finance projects in Nigeria, the country is frequently given stringent policy and finance-related conditions¹¹¹”.

b) Competition: FMST is in constant competition with other “science-using”

ministries, such as the Ministries of Agriculture, Energy, Communications, Aviation, and Transport, to name some of the most relevant. These ministries produce competing national policies. In order for FMST’s national S&T/STI policy to be relevant, it must formulate policies which external ministries can “buy into” and relate to their specific needs. The result therefore is greater efforts

111 E.g. prescribed key performance indicators, possession of an up-to-date S&T policy and on finance, part contribution of “matching” funding.

towards improvements in policymaking, for example improved attempts at stakeholder participation. Nevertheless, due to the lack of a guiding framework and clarity on what policy processes and routines should be deployed at each stage, these efforts, although well-intentioned, generally produce suboptimal results.

c) Politics: One of the positive outcomes of the uncompleted 2003 S&T national policy was an increase in the awareness of the role of politics (the political class, parliamentarians) and the need to strengthen policy processes and routines related to Stakeholder Engagement. This heightened awareness was demonstrated by the extra efforts made to engage the parliamentarians in the 2012 STI policy formulation. The findings reveal that prior to the 2012 formulation, the practice at FMST was to complete the final policy draft and then involve the parliamentarians at very late stages of policymaking e.g. legalisation. The evolution recorded in this regards, driven particularly by the failure of the 2003 policy formulation, was to recognise the importance of the legislature and to engage the parliamentarians earlier in the policy formulation stages. This was critical to ensuring that the parliamentarians endorsed the final draft, and then recommended it to the president for formal approval.

d) Capabilities: Although “capabilities” are still used at FMST in the narrow sense of skills (i.e. the possession of academic qualifications), the findings indicate greater appreciation of the need for policy capabilities and their roles (FMST, 2007).

e) From S&T to STI Policy: Another driver of the incremental innovation observed in the 2012 national policy formulation exercise was the move from S&T to STI policy with the emphasis on the “I” in “STI”. Two reasons help to explain this departure from S&T to STI are the desire: (1) for a bold statement that gives collective ownership to the policy, enhances its acceptance, improves operability, and avoids a potential policy somersault; (2) to join the league of “innovation nations”. However, one of the unintended consequences is the need to contextualise innovation in the policy and the underpinning capabilities required to both promote and support the innovation aspirations articulated in the policy.

In the section below, I discuss the policy processes that have not developed nor evolved.

6.3.2 Policy Processes that have not Developed/Evolved

In the findings I showed that 14 out of the 21 policy formulation processes at FMST have not evolved. Starting with Agenda Setting, for example, the findings reveal that the Ministry’s tradition of formulating national S&T policies in response to the serving president’s vision (or national development agenda) persists. The implication is that this results in a politically induced, reactionary and passive approach to setting policy agenda that does not promote active development or evolution of policy capabilities. With respect to Selecting a Policy Course, the findings reveal that one reason the policy process and routines involved have not evolved is due to the culture of imitation and “best practice”¹¹². Following this approach, policy directions are determined, for example, based on a course India or another country has chosen to follow.

The interview data reveal that in the majority of the cases the same factor was responsible for the lack of development and evolution of policy capabilities at FMST. The explanations I provide in this section for the weaknesses in the development and evolution of capabilities contribute to deepening our understanding of why seven processes did evolve. Consequently, I combine the reasons for the weaknesses in the development and evolution of policy capabilities, discuss them in Section 6.3.3 below and provide further explanations as to why policy processes have not adequately developed and evolved at FMST.

6.3.3 Reasons for Weaknesses in Development and Evolution of capabilities

Analyses of the data reveal that the development of policy capabilities at FMST has not followed a specific pattern, structure or methodology. Building on the findings, I discuss the factors that help explain why policy capabilities have not developed or evolved at FMST. I start by discussing leadership and management.

a) Leadership and Management

In Section 6.1.4 above, I argued that there is need for improvement in Leadership and Management policy processes and routines at FMST in order to strengthen their roles in policymaking as these policy processes significantly impact on policymaking in various ways. One significance of this insight to policymaking at FMST lie in the management

112 See Section 6.3.3.4 for more discussion on best practice

of policy formulation. For instance, FMST does not stipulate a set number of years during which a new S&T policy must be formulated. As a result, the conditions (such as, availability of funds, timing and staffing (i.e. framework conditions¹¹³) for policymaking are not predetermined, but are rather decided by the management. The implication is that Leadership and Management processes and routines that are favourable to policymaking are therefore essential in order for the management to decide on questions such as: (a.) is there a need for a new (or revision to an old) S&T policy and if yes? (b.) when should begin the policy formulation? (c.) which funding sources are potential available for the intended policy formulation exercise? and (d.) is need for capacity-building exercises and if yes, when should these begin? Weaknesses therefore in this regard mean that the development of policy capabilities is not approved. This group of policy processes, like funding, were found to have clear impacts on policy formulation, and the development and evolution of policy capabilities at FMST.

b) Lock-in and Blocking Mechanisms

Another factor identified to be responsible for the lack of evolution is the concept of

“lock-in”, which acts as a “blocking mechanism” to the development and evolution of policy capabilities at FMST. Lock-in in this context refers to the insistence on continuation of incumbent routine practices in the hope that they will eventually yield better results. Lock-in is a systemic failure that impedes innovation (UNCTAD, 2013, p.7-8). Bergek et al. (2008) refer to blocking mechanisms as “highly embedded routines”, practices and power structures that stifle organisational innovation. Such organisational culture and routines need to be identified (North, 1994; Bergek et al., 2005) and adjusted, or “aligned” (Freeman and Louca, 2002) in order to foster capabilities development and evolution. Nevertheless, organisational alignment is a challenging task, which in itself requires capabilities (Bergek et al., 2008). The prevalence of informal processes and routines at FMST further increases the difficulties of addressing these challenges arising from lock-in effects and blocking mechanisms. These insights also relate to literature on core capabilities and core rigidities (Leonard, 1992; Leonard-Barton, 1998). Literature on

113 For example, in Europe, financial incentives, innovation promotion programmes, research and technology centres, “’innovation-oriented infrastructure’” (Kuhlmann, 2001, pp.962-963). OECD (2005) define framework conditions as "the general conditions and institutions which set the range of opportunities for innovation" p.19

core capabilities and core rigidities argue that while core capabilities are useful, they also have downsides in that they can become core rigidities thereby inhibiting innovation.

Two examples can be used to illustrate the impact of lock-in and blocking mechanisms.

First is the persistent tradition of formulating national S&T policies in response to a president’s vision. While this approach may suit the political class, it has negative impacts on the development and evolution of capabilities, e.g. by failing to stimulate a demand for policy formulation capabilities and opportunities for experimentation. A second example is provided in the “panel (i.e. committee) approach”, which started with the 1986 S&T policy (Lebeau et al., 2000) and has continued since then. The implication is that a few “technical experts” often referred to as “egg heads” are appointed as “policymakers”

and left to “get the job” done, i.e. formulate the policy. Such a practice therefore relies on the skills of a select few without paying sufficient attention to the role of policy processes and routines or the benefits of wider stakeholder participation – thereby discouraging the development and evolution of policy processes and routines at FMST.

Furthermore, the findings also indicate that Leadership and Management are relevant here as a blocking mechanism. A recent case occurred between 2000-2007, during which the longest serving FMST minister, Professor Turner Isoun, focused on developing Nigeria’s Space Mission (Isoun, 2002, 2005; FMST, 2011) – without a careful articulation of how the project’s fit into the national development agenda or articulated in an up-to-date national S&T policy. The key insight and significance to future policymaking is that a Minister’s leadership latitude to set their S&T priorities/goals and the steps involved in asserting these goals, as illustrated in FMST, can result in authoritative behaviour with little regard for policymaking processes. Leadership and management therefore in this sense act as a blocking mechanism to the development and evolution of policy capabilities. The development, formalisation of incumbent policy capabilities and a guiding framework can help to minimise this risk.

c) Perceived Relative Importance of Policy Processes at FMST

In Chapter 5, drawing from the findings I argued that the perception of the relative importance of policy processes and routines at FMST meant that there was a lack of appreciation of the roles of some processes and routines in policymaking. While this thesis found no empirical evidence in support of this perception, the findings reveal that

this group of non-core capabilities perceived to be “less important” (e.g. “Exchange of ideas” and “Stakeholders role”) were rarely utilised and accorded little consideration. The focus of capabilities development at FMST, therefore, is skewed towards policy implementation with the implication that policy formulation capabilities are less likely to be developed and evolve; for similar reason, implementation was perceived to be more important than formulation.

d) Best Practices by Imitation

Best practice is one of the “mechanisms for trans-national learning designed to let policymakers and stakeholders ‘learn from each other’ in order to improve policymaking (Borrás, 2011). Similar mechanisms include, ‘benchmarking’, ‘peer review’, ‘mapping and trend charts’ – all of which aim at trans-national policy learning” (Bennett and Howlett, 1992; Borrás, 2011, p.5). However, in Nigeria’s context, “best practice” means policy formulation by imitation, an attempt to fix gaps or “failures” in policies by copying practices in other countries (NACETEM, 2011). Although best practice by imitation can be a form a learning by doing (Becker, 2005a), it only explains mechanisms and takes less account of context. Therefore, the emphasis on best practice at FMST mean that it adopts mechanisms without careful consideration to the appropriateness of the adoption, or failure to consider the relevance of the mechanisms to the Nigerian context.

A practice is “best” in specific contexts, locality or environment. Borrás (2011) argues that a generic identification, analyses or imitation of best practices devoid of the context of “the system” and accompanying policy learning is unlikely to yield the desired results – as the findings from FMST highlight. This finding, which shows one of the main reasons why policy capabilities have not developed and evolved at FMST, is in line with Siyanbola et al. (2013, p.4) who report that the 2012 STI policy formulation took its cue from practice in other countries including India, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia. The evidence captured showed that best practice has not advanced the development and evolution of policy capabilities at FMST; rather it acts as a blocking mechanism to capabilities development, evolution and policy learning. Next I discuss policy learning further in the section below.

e) Policy Learning not taking place at FMST

In Chapter 2 (Section 2.2) I explained that one example of a dynamic capability is an organisation’s ability to learn new practices, processes or routines; showing that learning, as a capability, is interactive (Lundvall, 2005), dynamic (Teece et al., 1997), and involves the integration and reconfiguration of capabilities. Learning also involves experimentation aimed at continuously improving organisational performance (Teece et al., 1997; Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Pablo et al., 2007). In Chapter 3 (Section 3.3) I discussed the importance of routines as capabilities in accomplishing policy tasks. Policy learning in this context relates to knowing who knows what within an organisation, as this impacts on organisational (i.e. collective) learning and the development of policy capabilities. Drawing from relevant literature I explained that routines encode organisational knowledge, thus acting as key components of organisational learning, capabilities development and change (evolution) (Feldman and Pentland, 2003).

Two types of learning relevant to the arguments of this thesis, which apply to both policymakers and policymaking, are: interactive learning (Lundvall, 2005, discussed above) and policy learning (Borrás, 2011). In discussing policy learning, I draw from the insights provided by Borrás (2011), who defines innovation policy learning as “as the specific process in which knowledge is used in the concrete development of policy formulation and implementation within the policymaking process" (p.3). Although studies of policy learning in STI policy continue to be scarce (Borrás, 2011), there is sufficient evidence in the policy literature that underlines the importance of policy learning for inducing policy change (innovation) (Borrás, 2011).

Bennett and Howlett (1992) and Borrás (2011) describe three interdependent levels of learning – government learning, lesson-drawing and social learning. The most relevant to

Bennett and Howlett (1992) and Borrás (2011) describe three interdependent levels of learning – government learning, lesson-drawing and social learning. The most relevant to