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IDENTIFYING SOCIAL INNOVATIONS IN AFRICA, ASIA AND LATIN AMERICA

Since 2015, the SIHI partners have been active in identifying social innovations in the global south for the purpose of learning more about them and promoting their work. To identify social innovations in health, we have adopted a crowdsourcing approach. This approach allows for widespread and open participation by people and organizations to share their social innovation projects, which we may not otherwise have been aware of.

HOW IT WORKS

Each SIHI crowdsourcing innovation call has a specific health and geographic focus. Calls are hosted by SIHI partners. Once a SIHI crowdsourcing innovation call is launched, the call is usually open for 6 – 8 weeks. Innovators can self-nominate and submit a brief summary of their work either via our dedicated online platform, or by completing a paper-based form and submitting it to one of our partners. During the call period, we do our best to promote and advertise the call widely via newspapers, social media, radio and television.

SIHI Innovation call history:

In 2015, the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship in partnership with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and TDR, WHO hosted the first SIHI social innovation call, open to nominations from across Africa, Asia and Latin America. A total of 150 eligible projects were received and each were reviewed by a dedicated panel of independent experts.

In 2017 – 18, a second round of calls were opened. Each call was hosted and lead by a SIHI country partner and aimed to identify more local solutions. Four calls were hosted in three countries and one region: Malawi, Uganda, the Philippines, and Latin America and the Caribbean. This resulted in the identification of 79 eligible. Again, each call had a dedicated country independent expert review panel screening and selecting projects for further research.

In 2019-20, thirty nine eligible projects were identified and six social innovations in health were selected for study in Malawi and in the Andean region (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela). The process of identification and study was also started in Ghana, Philippines, Rwanda and Uganda in 2020. In 2021, seven new country calls were launched in India, Indonesia, Ghana, Latin America and the Caribbean region, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Uganda.

LEARN HOW TO IDENTIFY INNOVATIONS

SIHI’s implementing partners, also called SIHI country hubs, are engaged in active efforts to conduct country research and building the capacity for social innovation within their countries.

Authors: Social Innovation in Health Initiative
Year: 2018

Authors: van Niekerk, L. and Hounsell, R.
Year: 2017

CALLING SOCIAL INNOVATORS

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