Developing a Framework for Ethnomedicine Innovation System in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the interactions within the national Innovation System in order to develop a framework for an Ethnomedicine system for Nigeria. The strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat inherent in the existing national Innovation System were examined and a modified framework was proposed by the creation of a linkage between the Local National Innovation System Structure and the Developed World’s National Innovation System. This proposed linkage is expected to be fast-tracked through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flow, in form of technology transfer, technical collaboration, technical assistance, technology-based strategic alliances, among others in the field of ethnomedicine. Through this linkage, the acquisition of tacit knowledge, product and process know-how, better management practices, skill, critical mass, best practices in advanced technologically superior operations needed to upgrade the value of Nigerian ethnomedicine research could be realized, through technological spillover since medicine plants are plentiful in Nigeria.