7.3 Need for Bridging the Gaps in Policy Implementation

The gap between declared policy objectives and aims, and the practical shape the policy take upon being implemented has been found to impair the promotion of indigenous technology utilization. The importance of the government’s role lies not only in lying down policy but also in efficiently following it up for its effective implementation.

The implications of deficiencies and drawbacks in the effectiveness in executing the policies for promoting indigenous technology utilization are indeed a matter of primary concern when viewed in the light of the fact that the governments themselves fund the bulk of R&D for generating technologies in most developing countries.

It is therefore, suggested that the governments must pay special attention to the need for making an assessment of the implementation of policies, and their de facto state of the art with a view to identifying gaps, deficiencies and drawbacks in their follow up and execution. Evidently, factors could affect or impede implementation of policies. Nevertheless, in areas where policies can be strictly enforced by proper monitoring control and checks, such as regards the technology generation process, there should be no slackness.

The “technology push” approach should not be resorted to in order to sanctify shortcomings of the efforts at the technology generation level without being required to demonstrate technological innovative faculty, and without being ab initio tied to utilitarian consideration in terms of project selection, and at large, to accountability for technology performance. The technology extension services, in the agricultural section, provide a good lesson of how technologies can be pushed to the grass roots in the developing countries.

In the final analysis, there does not seems to be a duality in the technology push and the demand pull approach. In effect, both these approaches form a part of a unified strategy for successfully commercializing technologies. They are not conflicting or contradictory but rather complementary. The demand-pull approach yields results only when technologies are ‘pushed’ by the state – what is of utmost importance is to push right type of technologies with the right kind of policies, and with requisite support services, backed by necessary means. Technologies promoted and pushed wrongly or without necessary means could only result in frustration. There does not appear to be any reason as to why normally “pushing” will not be “pulled” by demand since the growth of the firm and the entrepreneurs as also of the nations feeds on technology development and utilization.