ABSTRACT
This chapter advances three propositions on the relationship of institutions and technology. It argues that traditional technology policies in Africa have failed to stimulate the desired endogenous technological dynamism because the policy process assumed away the role of institutions. The capability building efforts through international technology transfer processes have equally been flawed because they focus largely on machinery purchase and the imitation of organizational forms for Research and Development, with little consideration for the underlying institutional forms and practices in which they were embedded. Because the path of development is highly dependent on past decisions and actions, institutions of Science and Technology in Africa are entrapped in sub-optimal systems configurations that took root over the last four decades. The chapter employs the broader concept of institutions and locates it within a historical context that admits the evolution of institutions themselves and calls attention to a set of issues in understanding institutional evolution.
