Short Abstract:

African SMEs show capacities to be resilient under conditions of scarcity or volatility. How to include their proven and knowledgeable practices in the co-creation of transformative sustainability pathways? This panel tries to outline a research agenda in which the knowledge of SMEs really counts.

Long Abstract:

Africa is full of local initiatives by knowledgeable change agents showing resilience and contributing to transformative sustainability pathways. How to capture, use and share this knowledge in the co-creation of innovative practices that cope with or overcome resource constraints, be it in water, housing, energy, health, or food provision. We argue that a promising pathway is to start from established business practices of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that expose proven adaptive capacities to navigate and respond to harsh conditions.

This panel aims to advance our understanding of the resilience of these business practices. Revealing these capacities shows how SMEs, as change agents, cope with shocks and disturbances and how they navigate scarcity or volatility related to changing weather patterns or social conflict.

The panel starts with an empirical inventory of proven business practices in the so-called hidden middle in the food provisioning system. The 2SCALE program partners with SMEs with the aim to incubate inclusive agribusiness and contribute to food and nutrition security. The capacities of SME's to navigate scarcity and volatility is anchored in their everyday practices of handling product and finance flows related to sourcing, aggregating, processing and/or distributing food.

Next, the panel examines with a frugality lens in what ways the business practices combine affordability and accessibility, and how SME's make use of and/or combine low-end and high-end technologies. A frugality lens highlights tacit knowledge vested in local innovators and entrepreneurs and people who live in resource constrained environments; knowledge gained through and fed by experimentation, intergenerational knowledge transfer and daily experiences.

Finally, the panel stimulates a creative discussion outlining the contours a research agenda that is attentive to involving informal sector-based innovators and entrepreneurs in transformative processes of co-creation of sustainability pathways. Central to this agenda is the question whose knowledge really counts?

Accepted paper:

Session 1

Frugality in multi-actor interactions and absorptive capacity of Addis-Ababa light-rail transport  
Taslim Alade (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Paper short abstract:

Long abstract provided

Paper long abstract:

Cities in transition need strategies to do more and better using less or limited resources, i.e., to be frugal in approach, especially when implementing expensive infrastructures. Addis-Ababa city in recent years acquired the light-rail transport (LRT) from China, which entails different multi-actors interacting to achieve resource-efficient LRT in terms of cost, technical knowledge and time. Addis-Ababa re-organized their organizational structure to interact with multi-actors, in providing affordable LRT, measurable technological transfer and learning routine via structured absorptive capacity, delivering an environmentally sound electrified light-rail, as a zero-carbon emission transport system. Using mixed research methods, consisting of light-rail expert's semi-structured interviews and passenger surveys, this article aims to know how the multi-actor interaction processes and absorptive capacity structure have delivered frugality in urban rail transport. Thus, delivering the LRT, despite inadequate country-owned financial resources, less technological and knowledge capability of LRT, within a limited period of three years. Results show that frugality strongly depends on the structure of absorptive capacity and the process of multi-actor interactions. In addition, tacit knowledge developed by Addis-Ababa, as an existing knowledge base is vital in harnessing the explicit knowledge provided by China. This frugally delivered light-rail consequently brought changes to the low-income passengers, including some part of the bottom of the pyramid (PoB) category, and a fraction of modal shift from other motorized transport modes to the light-rail public transport.

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