The Futures of Bioeconomy in Eastern Africa

There are many good reasons, ranging from aspirations for greater ecological sustainability to inspiring practical business innovations, to imagine the future of the Bioeconomy, especially for East African countries1 that are still largely agrarian. To engage in such imagining this project used a structured action-learning futures methodology with the goal of exploring a Bioeconomy strategy for East Africa. The process enabled participants to engage their collective-intelligence to consider the Bioeconomy in much broader sense, integrating images of future production of bio-products into potential society wide dynamics. The participants produced a range of scenarios from ones that depicted considerable potential for the Bioeconomy with vibrant and sustainable business to other more conflict riven futures due to bio-piracy, bio-security, environmental degradation among other concerns. The key drivers of the futures were seen as conducing policies and nature of investments attracted to the sector. Some policy proposals that emerged included developing regional and national platforms to bring stakeholders together to ensure policy coherence, creating innovation platforms to drive R&D, developing outreach programs to communicate Bioeconomy prospects and stimulating demand for bio-products through mandates (e.g. ban on single use plastics) and incentives e.g. government procurement quotas.