One-fifth of the innovative solutions to fight the Covid-19 pandemic have emerged from low and middle-income countries, and these responses offer promising insights for how we think about, manage, and enable innovation. As the international community now faces the historic challenge of vaccinating the world, more attention and resources must be directed to the innovators who are developing technically novel, contextually relevant, and socially inclusive alternatives to mainstream innovation management practices.
How do innovations move from the edges to the core of what an organization does? For maximum impact, innovations must cease to be innovative and become institutionalized and normalized.
The OECD InDeF team developed a portfolio approach to innovation. A portfolio approach takes a balcony view on innovation which helps organizations align innovation processes, resources and performance with organizational objectives and enables them to track innovation with a view to scaling. Coached by the OECD team, Enabel colleagues in Benin, Morocco and Palestine piloted this portfolio approach by reviewing their current innovation supporting activities and investments against a set of key criteria.
In the face of the climate emergency, around 140 countries, which emit close to 90% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, are planning to reduce their emissions to as close to zero as possible (known as net zero) in the upcoming decades. Around a third of these are low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the countries most affected by climate change. So how can countries in the Global South achieve a socially-just transition? One key element is innovation, and potentially mission-oriented innovation.