By Sylvester Thompson
Dr John Omimakinde, overseeing Director General of National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM) on Wednesday inaugurated the National Working Committee (NWC) on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) indicators to drive national development strategies.
The D-G said STI indicators played a fundamental role of providing scientific evidence for formulating national development strategies.
He disclosed that STI indicators were being deployed by developed nations in economic planning, policy formulation and development strategies.
Omimakinde said: ”`These indicators will ultimately facilitate evidence-based policy making and assist government to remove guesswork from governance.
“In fact, the objectives of STI indicators project include among others, to monitor, evaluate and forecast Nigeria’s performance on STI.
”It will also benchmark national developmental targets and assess Nigeria’s international competitiveness on STI.
“It further lends credence to its strategic importance in achieving sustainable development in Nigeria.
“It is a project we cannot afford to treat with kid’s gloves as it requires concerted efforts and intentionality to make our data not only reliable, but timely.
The NACETEM helmsman however regretted that upon all the benefit of STI indicators, in some African countries, most policies on STI were not based on scientific facts.
Omimakinde said: ”It was such noticeable lacuna which prompted the conceptualisation of STI indicators project in 2005 by NACETEM, which became continental.”
The D-G added that the continental nature wasn’t as a result of its integration with the AU-NEPAD African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) initiative in 2007.
”This was in furtherance to the agency’s mandate of establishing, maintaining and providing access to databanks on STI research outputs and facilitating activities towards their commercial exploitation.
“This made the Federal Government in 2007 to mandate NACETEM to serve as the implementation agency,’’ he said.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)