Cross National Convergence Of Biotechnology Policy

The study of cross-national policy convergence has been increasing in recent years.Yet the understanding of this phenomenon continues to be limited.This research explores both existing and future regulatory approaches to food crises and the major challenges of contemporary genetically modified biotechnology.This research focuses on the complexities of cross-national collaboration to control these innovations in West Africa and Africa as a whole and also explores the effectiveness of policy convergence observation.It shows further the requirements for the integration of biotechnology policies or rather develops further apart.From a theoretical point of view,the need for cross-national collaboration in the management of biotechnology was studied from a wider perspective of policy convergence.The mechanisms for policy convergence identified for the sake of this research were four factors,namely international harmonization,transnational communication,regulatory competition and other domestic factors.The research analyzes empirically how and to what degree integration in biotechnology policies could be accomplished in West Africa.The approach used triangulated methods(qualitative and quantitative)with a convenient sampling method.The survey for the study was undertaken using questionnaires in a Likert scale form as well as interviews and observations during data collection.For analytical analysis,the data were analyzed using RStudio while IBM-SPSS was used for demographic data descriptive support.Results from regression analysis showed a remarkable degree of convergence among the countries examined for the convergence of biotechnology policy.The key reasons for this development are international harmonization and,to a considerable degree,transnational communication as well as domestic factors,while regulatory competition does not seem to have a role to play.The results of the hypotheses tested showed statistically satisfactory p-values for all factors except for regulatory competition and showed that,a variety of factors that promote or impede policy convergence,which includes but not limited to the characteristics of cultural,social,socioeconomic,institutional and political issues.The study concludes that an understanding of these factors is necessary if empirical and theoretical recommendations are to be made on cross-national policy convergence.