The Sunday News
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Sunday News Reporter
ZIMBABWE will not accommodate useless sophistication in universities but would focus on putting together the basics to ensure re-industrialisation of the country and incubation of innovations that would enable the country achieve its National Development Strategy (NDS) priorities, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said State Universities in the country have been transformed into birthplaces of industries and have swiftly responded.
Prof Murwira said in 2020 the universities managed to complement Government efforts in combating Covid-19 which is ravaging the world mostly first world countries where it has claimed a lot of lives compared to Africa.
He said useless innovations and sophistications were not important in the country and were not in tandem with the national objectives as espoused in the NDS1 which was recently adopted by the country.
The NDS1 outlines the policies, legal and institutional reforms, programmes and projects for identified national priorities that will be implemented over the strategy’s five-year lifespan.
This will help to achieve accelerated, high, inclusive, broad-based and sustainable economic growth and development.
The broad objectives of NDS1 include strengthening macro-economic stability, low and stable inflation, a stable exchange rate, inclusive and equitable real growth in the gross domestic product (GDP), promoting new enterprise development, employment and job creation and industrialising and modernising the economy.
Prof Murwira said local universities have the capacity to turn around the Zimbabwean economy following the snippets of innovations done in 2020 soon after the establishment of innovation hubs and industrial parks.
“We are humbled by the movement in the setting up of innovation hubs. We are moving in the direction where the country is industrialising and our universities are birthplaces of industry. Most foreign companies came here as an investment and the establishment of industry but their researches were done elsewhere. For instance, Coca-Cola’s research laboratories in Atlanta.
We may not have been able to come up with Covid-19 vaccines as has been done elsewhere. But we do what we can with our capacity. There is no need for useless sophistication. We managed to do masks, PCR machines and sanitisers,” he said.
Prof Murwira said innovation hubs were a way to make good ideas and were evaluated by the technical team.
“We want to make sure that prototypes are produced establishing our own industry. The National University of Science and Technology (Nust) that is where we are doing genetics helping in the tuberculosis laboratories at Mpilo Hospital.
They have also helped with the machines for the polymerase chain reaction tests (PCR). The Midlands State University focuses on indigenous herbs. Chinhoyi University Technology (CUT) we are mainly doing biotechnology.
We have a semen bank, cattle breeding as well as seed. We also have dairy projects there which is producing about 400 litres per day and a lot of research in that field.
“We also have industrial parks for instance at the University of Zimbabwe doing various inventions. We have the Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) which is making a lot of innovations. HIT designed the Zupco smart card. They are doing fuel tracking system,” he said.
The strategy succeeds the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP): 2018-2020, which focused on, inter-alia, stabilising the macro-economy and the financial sector, and thus laid the foundation required for economic growth.
The NDS1 had 14 priority areas: economic growth and stability; food security and nutrition; governance; moving the economy up the value chain and structural transformation; human capital development; environmental protection, climate resilience and natural resource management; housing delivery; ICT and the digital economy; health and well-being; transport, infrastructure and utilities; image-building and international engagement and re-engagement; social protection; youth, sport and culture; and devolution.
