If GII Is For The World, IMOD Is For The Philippines! – William Dar


Is the world innovative enough such as the GII would like us to believe?
There is a Technical Meeting and High-Level Conference – meaning, closed doors – on the Global Innovation Index, GII, going on at the Philippine International Convention Center, 18-19 February 2020[1]. Heads of national agencies expected to participate are those of the Departments of Agriculture, Information & Communications Technology, Science & Technology, Trade & Industry, the Commission on Higher Education, CHEd, and National Economic & Development Authority, NEDA.

Meanwhile, I am reading the Facebook sharing (above) of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie. Intriguing, yes.
But first, about the GII and its relevance to the economy. Louella Desiderio says, “Philippines Jumps 19 Places In Global Innovation Index” (Philippine Star[2]). Ms Louella says the GII, which is co-published by Cornell University and the World Intellectual Property Organization, “measures the innovation performance and progress of countries.” Innovation follows progress. With the GII, innovativeness is a reflection of these 7 foundations: institutions, infrastructure, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, creative outputs, human capital and research, and market sophistication.

So PH is 54th in innovation among 129 countries, a lower middle income country. Miguel Gil says NEDA head Ernesto Pernia says the country is “expected to advance to upper middle income status by 2020[3]” (Philippine News Agency), which is this year.

What does it mean when PH achieves “middle income status” this year? To answer, I go back to the caption of Manong Willie that accompanies the image on Facebook (above):

Highlighting the importance of innovation and technology as the accelerators of growth of the Inclusive Market-Oriented Development strategy in agriculture!

Differently, he looks at innovation and technology as expediters of national growth in the context of the strategy called Inclusive Market-Oriented Development, IMOD. That changes everything. I was extremely delighted when I saw those words about the development strategy in PH Agriculture in the mind of Manong Willie.

You see, IMOD is where the poor are actors for as well as acceptors of progress. I know all about IMOD because I was an international consulting writer for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, and ICRISAT adopted the IMOD strategy with Manong Willie as Director General – he was DG from January 2000 to December 2014.

IMOD is necessary to consider, even if the GII ignores it as a gauge of global growth. Market-oriented means (a) that the country is conscious of the workings of the markets as far as the farmers are concerned, and (b) that the farmers must be especially observant of the supply and demand of the markets of farm produce. Inclusive development means that the poor farmer producers are included as justifiable recipients of the values added along the chain from seed to spoon, and the merchants are excluded.

So, okay, with GII being observed, the Philippines will become an upper middle income country this year. But if we do not follow IMOD as PH strategy, the poor we will always have with us!@







[1] http://www.tapi.dost.gov.ph/news/203-moving-up-dost-hosts-gii-conference-in-the-philippines
[2] https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/07/26/1937993/philippines-jumps-19-places-global-innovation-index
[3] https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1075978

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