Strategic productivity has potential where funding is limited. Photo illustration courtesy
While policymakers often point to infrastructure gaps, insufficient skills, or limited market access as barriers to economic growth, a structural problem exists: the way capital is structured rarely aligns with the nature of the work required for systems change.
Instead of fueling meaningful innovation, most funding supports surface-level activities, such as training sessions, equipment purchases, and startup competitions, while neglecting the deeper work of making systems function more intelligently and effectively.
The core challenge isn’t a shortage of funds but a mismatch in focus.
“Most funding frameworks support activity, not productivity.”
What’s missing is an investment in the real work of transformation—designing systems that function at scale, adapt over time, and distribute value more equitably.
There are two layers of productivity: operational and strategic.
Operational productivity involves improving efficiency within existing structures by coordinating efforts, reducing waste, and accelerating delivery.
Even with marginal funding, this layer often fails due to a lack of supportive infrastructure or follow-through.
Strategic productivity, however, is where the most transformative potential lies—and where funding is virtually non-existent.
In this layer, we challenge stakeholders to rethink the value chain: How is value created? Where does value disappear? What incentives drive behaviour?
Strategic productivity involves the redesign of entire systems, yet most funding mechanisms, often rigid, risk-averse, and output-oriented, tend to overlook it.
At the heart of the issue is a contradiction: funders often demand innovation but design systems that discourage exploration.
Traditional funding models require clear plans, rigid timelines, and predetermined deliverables—conditions that are inherently incompatible with the complex and dynamic nature of work.
When the most helpful step is to pause, test, or adapt, it looks like failure.”
Yet, this kind of reflection is essential for identifying bottlenecks, understanding context, and co-creating sustainable solutions.
The result? Projects that tick boxes but don’t move the needle.
The Kenyan context offers a particularly sharp example.
With a significant portion of its economy tied to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and agriculture, systemic innovation in these sectors could transform livelihoods and national outcomes.
But that transformation requires investment in the slow, uncertain, and often invisible work of understanding systems—work that current funding models don’t support.
Ironically, many funders speak the language of innovation, yet their funding models remain anchored in predictability.
They want to see transformation, but measure success as if it were routine service delivery.
This paradox leads to a proliferation of “safe” projects that deliver visible outputs but miss the deeper opportunity: unlocking stuck systems.
The consequences are predictable: promising pilots stall, new tools go unused, and partnerships collapse under the weight of misaligned incentives.
The issue isn’t that these initiatives are flawed—it’s that they are rarely embedded within systems that can carry, sustain, or scale them.
Our single, rallying call is this: fund the architecture, not just the activity. Scalable innovation happens not at the level of projects but at the level of systems.
It’s the kind of thinking that rewired Kenya’s economy through M-PESA—not just digitising payments but transforming how value flowed across households, businesses, and sectors.
What’s missing is not ideas or energy, but the funding of system-level enablers that translate science into application, align capital across actors, and redesign trust and coordination mechanisms.
In essence, we provide funding for the visible aspects of the problem, neglecting the underlying issues.
We are not advocating for a lowering of standards. Instead, we are calling for a redefinition of accountability to reflect the nature of complex work.
In complex environments, productivity isn’t about doing more. It’s about learning faster.
That means funding models should evolve to reward system learning and iteration.
Milestone-based funding could be tied not to rigid outputs but to insights and adaptations.
Outcome-linked disbursements could provide room for testing new models without penalising uncertainty.
Structures should be built not just to reward speed but to value understanding and coordination.
To support this shift, we propose an innovative mechanism: Productivity & Innovation Centres of Excellence.
These aren’t accelerators or grant-making bodies.
Instead, they function as “infrastructure for insight,” offering teams the space, tools, and support to decode complexity, test early interventions, and refine strategies before scaling.
By doing so, these centres help funders de-risk the most critical part of systems work: the exploratory phase.
Rather than jumping straight to delivery, they allow time to observe, learn, and adapt, ensuring that the right work is done, not just the visible work.
In essence, these centres act as the connective tissue between funders, practitioners, and systems.
They help translate bold ambitions into executable, scalable strategies.
The call to action is clear. If we want to deliver on Kenya’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda or Africa’s Continental Free Trade Area ambitions, we must rethink how we fund productivity.
That begins with asking better questions:
·      Are we funding activity or insight?
·      Are we rewarding deliverables or understanding?
·      Are we enabling transformation or preserving the status quo?
The most valuable forms of progress often don’t look like productivity at first. But they’re the ones everything else depends on.
As countries across Africa strive to build resilient and inclusive economies, rethinking how we structure and deploy funding may prove to be the most vital—and yet most overlooked—lever for meaningful change.
It is no longer enough to fund only what is visible or easily measured.
Instead, we must begin investing in the deeper, more complex work that enables systems to function, adapt, and scale.
Unlocking real progress means funding not just activities or deliverables, but the underlying architecture that allows innovation to take root and grow.
In doing so, we can shift from fragmented efforts to transformative outcomes that endure.
Co-authored with Liesbeth Bakker and CASBI – Centre for Applied Sciences & Business Innovation
