Acquiring knowledge and harnessing it for the production of green products is fundamental to a science, technology and innovation (ST&I) policy, leading to sustainable socio-economic progress.

Knowledge is never centred at one place or with one person. The greater the stakeholders’ involvement and opportunities for proactive participation, the more the collective knowledge and wisdom achieved in addressing the issues and challenges towards national development and citizens’ welfare.

Diverse knowledge can help minimise shortcomings and enhance quality from multiple aspects of any products/technologies developed and employed in this age of fierce competition at all levels.

Transforming science and technology knowledge to a product may be a one-step laboratory process but taking it to a competitive market adds a pilot production phase, the success of which eventually leads to the commercial scale production for the market.

To meet this coming together of the most relevant stakeholders and development of an effective working mechanism based on equal opportunity, shared responsibilities and rights of the stakeholders is essential. So is effective coordination at all levels.

A governing and steering committee (G&SC), with the minister for science and technology at its head and having representation from the Ministries of Education and Commerce and Industry is needed for decision making at the highest level.

In view of the powers delegated to the provinces, similar Provincial Governing and Steering Committees (PG&SC), may be constituted through a decision by the federal committee. Such a move will create the much needed cohesiveness among various government policies. It needs to be initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology, acting as the nucleus, with a central role and sustainable coordination with the other two ministries.

Independent or under the patronage of the above two G&SCs, sub-level Industrial Round Table Forums (IRTFs), with equal representations of governments, industry, academia & R&D institutions and civil society should be constituted both at the national and provincial levels to help implement the 2021 National ST&I policy and to offer technical and possible other support in the development and implementation of consensus decisions by the two G&SCs.

These may include the creation of an Innovative/Risky Ideas Fund,” incentives for stakeholders; a 3 or 5 years (not annual) performance evaluation report of R&D institutions with recommendations for needed re-structuring.

The forums for transferring knowledge to products may be used by the stakeholders as follows:

R&D need/demand with regard to problems/issues of raw material, manufacturing process (including emissions/releases reduction control, quality and production), manufacturing/plant equipment (including maintenance/supply), by/through representative of industry (private and public sectors, SMEs).

Addressing/solving the above challenges by/through representatives of R&D, academia and think tanks.

Youth/manpower by representatives of universities/educational institutions

Information dissemination/information exchange, promotion and support to ST& I policies, programme, activities by/through representatives of Civil Society/NGOs.

Qualified liaison focal person/s, will be needed at the steering committees, industrial bodies, R&D, academic institutions/think tanks to support this support and liaison chain.

Diverse knowledge can help minimise shortcomings and enhance quality from multiple aspects of any products/technologies developed and employed in this age of fierce competition at all levels.

Transferring knowledge to product/industrial production must be prioritised based on consumers’ needs, national security needs and economic necessities in the following order:

Indigenous/local/home-made new products or improved quality/production levels, with a ban on import of similar products (and raw material) for a period of time to support enhancement of the indigenous and local products quality/production level and the expansion of the product industry).

Substitution of the imported products to cut down foreign-exchange spending.

Products based on local raw material

Products to be used as raw material for local production

Products from on industrial/non-industrial wastes (with prior feasibility studies of the waste, its generation quantum, ease of access and transport and safety).

The finalisation of the priority list of the identified “import substitutes and other priority products,” must be followed with a “3-5 years action plan” for their development including targets (products/technologies to be developed), activities, timeframe, action marked/institutions responsible/actors, a budget, funding sources, national/international donors.

These action plan/s, may need further strengthening through literature search and writing and accessibility of sector-specific reviews with baseline research data (as accessible) of at least last 15 years publishedresearch.

ST& I/Technology transfer for sustainable industrial/agricultural promotion and development (TTSIAD) to rural/agricultural areas, through tele-service, mobile laboratory/ at site training and capacity building service would also help curb rural to urban migration and benefit the underdeveloped areas/poor local populations.

Besides South Asian and a few selected Asian countries, it is most relevant and would be useful to also look at the main features of China’s S&T policy. To enhance further connectivity for the CPEC and other S&T research collaboration programmes and activities, development of an information directory, with contact information (in Chinese, English/Urdu) about China and Pakistan can lead researchers and research institutions, industry-specific match-making between the two countries and holding of joint industrial conferences/summit between industrial stakeholders.

Among others, experience-sharing on green technologies and environmental risk management (including environmental impact assessment) could be explored besides government-to-government and people-to-people contacts.

The latest national ST&I policy needs an evaluation to ensure the need for a new policy or revision/updating of the same and identifying areas/recommendations of the last policy that need to carried forward or deleted in the new proposed policy.

The writer is a senior advisor at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad. He can be reached at khwaja@sdpi.org