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Biosafety Regulations Implementation in Kenya: Kenya’s experience
Ann Kingiri
Research into Use (RIU) Program
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Introduction
Biotech innovation unique?– In several respects it involves multiple actors with diverse perspectives
Proponents….Unique Opponents…..Risky
– The different views driven largely by mixed reactions related to benefits, fear, anxieties, uncertainties related to use of new applications like genetic engineering
– Differences in perspectives reflect controversies linked to diverse social and economic/scientific rationalities
Biosafety regulation endeavours to manage controversies and embedded uncertainties
Why analyse biotech innov system?– Biotech innovation is knowledge intensive and is largely mode 2 research– Biosafety governance thro appropriate regulation adds to the complexity because
of management of regulatory knowledge that is value laden
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Issues for contemporary actors involved in biotech governance……
Increased challenges associated with globalisation-trade, informed society demanding increased accountability
For scientists reduced public funding for research resulting in increased collaborative research (public and private sector)
Biotech research is trans-disciplinary in nature with increased integration & cooperation (engaged scholarship)
For policy scientists, inadequate capacity for putting in place regulatory systems (again collaborative & donor supported)
Regulatory demands & implementation challenges
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Issues for contemporary actors cont’d……
Consequently, the new institutional and knowledge production terrain has affected the role & practice of contemporary actors (e.g. scientists and mode 2 research)
Biosafety regulation as a means to manage controversies and embedded uncertainties is linked to certain complex & politically driven forms of knowledge (regulatory, policy, institutional etc); scientists inevitably get entangled in this
Challenges Adaptation of actors to deal with the dynamic & challenging
institutional terrain (limited research done) Immediate setback is the management of diverse forms of
knowledge emanating from this trans-disciplinary and multi actor setting
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Actors roles & engagement in biotech regulatory policy-Kenya’s context
(Based on empirical research conducted between 2006 – 2009) Weak formal mechanisms for actors engagement Actors roles characterised by:
– Active distinct pro and anti policy groups – Proliferation of coalitions and collaborations – Behind the scene actors (Biotech industry, pro-biotech and anti-biotech
funding bodies) Multiple & conflicting roles of scientific community:
– Knowledge drivers as experts (biosafety & advanced biotech science) – Policy targets in implementing biosafety regulations as innovators or researchers of GE
science – Policy enforcers as regulators and policy agents Scientific community are both knowledge producers & knowledge users in the
normative scientific field and regulatory process respectively
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Implications
Politicised regulatory process & tensions!!!!
– Policy process polemic and polarised
– Articulation of multiple roles confounded by conflicting obligations, values and interests (individual and institutional levels)
– Policy process skewed towards scientific expertise & marginalising other types of knowledge input
The politicised regulatory issues masks the overall goal-food security agenda
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How can a meaningful process be managed in Africa context?
Arguably, biotech policy may address governance & actors engagement issues but can work for or against the prominent discourse for the poor
– (prominent discourse is GE is good for food security…cf FAO, 2004; Nepad report “Freedom to Innovate” by Juma, and Serageldin, 2007)
However, this is complex – Issue is biotech innovation versus broader food security issues on one hand
& uncertainty/fear/controversies on the other Proposed model must accept that values and interests energise actors
to pursue diverse lines of argument & to undertake certain persuasive strategies
Insights from innovations systems approach, social technologies & mode 2 practice
– Learning, interaction and knowledge use must embrace system or holistic thinking
– Mode 2 thinking calls for socially desirable knowledge use-for the different types of knowledge to “speak back to science”
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Prodve mgt of diverse knowledge types
New ways of managing knowledge in biotech innovation calls for
– Reflexivity (all actors)– Building multi-layered skills capacities that cultivate new
culture of learning that considers different belief systems and different values (Lyall et al. 2009)
– Realisation of the fact that knowledge accumulates and becomes usable and meaningful if it is shared, in a transparent manner
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Conclusion
It is imp to understand how current discourses around biotech innovation are framed and with what implications for food security and safety
The context specific issues that confront Africa & localised needs call for context specific stakeholders’ engagement strategies
Rethinking role of scientific knowledge in informing policy processes and stakeholders’ engagement
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Final note
All players must dialogue & listen to each other because…..– All players have a role to play:
As knowledge suppliers or users in the knowledge production & governance continuum
& in the recontextualised process as “experts” and as stakeholders not as “actors”
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Thank you for your attentionThank you for your attention