Stimulating Innovation through Public Procurement: Barriers to Awareness Level of Public Procurement of Innovation

Abstract

Public sector procurement is very significant driver of innovation and currently re-emerging as the most sought after instrument of demand-side innovation policies. Progressively, it has been viewed as having imperative potential to drive innovation; there has been an issue of awareness deficit of public procurement as an innovation policy tool among key stakeholders- policy makers, procurement practitioners and academics particularly in Ghana and Africa. It’s in this direction that this study sought to explore the barriers to awareness level of public procurement as an innovation policy tool among the key stakeholders in Ghana. The study adopted both exploratory and cross-sectional survey designs in investigating the barriers. Purposive sampling was used in selecting the sample to help fulfil the predetermined purpose of the study. The study revealed among others the following: low level of education as a major challenge to innovation in Ghana and developing nations, limited budgets for education in training of high-skill specialist for promotion of innovation, lack of coordination across agencies on innovation policies (incoherent public policies), poor governance and business conditions affecting awareness level, lack of public sector support of innovation, no policy direction as to the use of public procurement to stimulate innovation in Ghana. The study also showed a lack of link between science and innovation in Ghana impeding the awareness level among the key stakeholders. The study recommends performance appraisal and institutional performance reviews for management of education to improve the level of education in Ghana and the curriculum for VTE level should be practical-oriented. They should also increase the funding of education in general and VTE in particular. Agencies responsible for STI should be strengthened to coordinate all policies intended to influence innovation in Ghana and put together a coherent policy competent enough to capturing innovation where public procurement policy, R&D policies and innovation policies will be connected together.