Recommendation 4: The World Bank Group should broaden its involvement in inclusive innovation projects in response to client demands. World Bank and IFC should intensify current efforts to pilot, assess, learn, and scale up inclusive innovation projects with partners.
The Bank should focus on building innovation capacity early in the development process to help low income countries acquire and adapt the types of innovation that address challenges that are specific to their local contexts.
Teams developing inclusive innovation projects should pilot, assess, and scale up different types of inclusive innovation. Such efforts must be underpinned by an effective monitoring and evaluation system so that the learning process can inform dissemination and use of new products, processes, and services in other development contexts.
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Inclusive innovation is a relatively new concept but is getting increased attention by some developing country governments and development institutions including the World Bank Group. In more recent CASs, upper-middle-income China and Brazil have focused on emphasized inclusiveness and requested Bank support for promoting inclusive innovation that addresses the needs of the poor.
WB: Agree.
In the context of the Strategic Framework, WBG management will explore options and opportunities for piloting more and scaling up initiatives on inclusive innovation as well as facilitating South-South knowledge exchange around successful inclusive innovation projects.
As part of this scaling up and knowledge exchange effort, FPD East Asia has already developed a partnership agreement with the Global Research Alliance, which seeks to apply innovative science and technology to improve the lives and economic opportunities of the poor.
Action 4 a (WB) Expand initiatives to support innovations aimed at the poor.
Indicator: Number of projects (lending, technical assistance, and reimbursable advisory services) on inclusive innovation.
Baseline: Only one loan operation approved on inclusive innovation.
Target: The concept notes of at least 3 more projects (either lending, technical assistance or RAS) on inclusive innovation to be approved.
Timeline: FY15
As presented in the management update the Bank has been increasingly focusing on lending and lending projects that include inclusive innovation. Next year, it will be better if the management update can include list of inclusive innovation projects.
The Social Enterprise Innovation (SEI) program and team from LLI was successfully integrated into T&C (specifically the IE Unit) during FY17. As part of the strategic review of T&C and IE priorities during FY17, it was determined that the primary focus of the SEI program was on delivery of social services which is a thematic area that is not one of T&C core business lines. It was decided that T&C (and the IE unit) will exit from this specific service offering but remain engaged in the inclusive innovation agenda. In particular, delivery of social services such as education, health, utilities and sanitation to underserved communities is the core mandate of other GPs (SURR, Education, HNP, Water and Energy) and T&C exited from this agenda. This means that T&C (IE) will not provide knowledge products or design/implement operations focusing on this agenda and the relevant products and services were transferred to other GPs:(i) impact investing and social impact bonds which is a topic of emerging interest to clients but on which we do not currently have in-house expertise. This was transferred to the F&M GP which is very keen to take on this thematic area.(ii) The IE unit will continue to offer the Innovation Policy Platform (IPP) as a knowledge repository on social entrepreneurship business models and is best positioned to continue to provide e-learning and capacity building services on this topic through cross support to other GPs under the broader inclusive innovation agenda.(iii) The IE unit will continue to support clean technology, agribusiness and digital entrepreneurship in thematic areas that have an inclusive innovation agenda such as off-grid energy, clean water solutions and waste reduction/management as part of our current offerings.(iv) The IE unit will retain the mandate of inclusive innovation i.e. supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in FCV states and marginalized communities such as refugees and migrants through both knowledge products and operations and we hope to continue to engage donors on this topic as part of our suite of product offerings.(v) Knowledge products related to inclusive innovations in service delivery will be transferred to SURR, Education, HNP, Water and Energy. Cross support will be provided on on-demand basis.In its continued support of the inclusive innovation agenda in FY17, T&C implemented the following activities:1. Cross-support to WBG operations: The team supported inclusive innovation components of operations in Colombia, India, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, and Russia.2. Knowledge products: The team delivered a series of knowledge products that were published on the Innovation Policy Platform as part of the module on Inclusive Innovation for Development and the Community pf Practices on Inclusive Innovation Policies and Inclusive Innovation Business Models (https://innovationpolicyplatform.org/content/inclusive-innovation-devel…). Key knowledge products include:(i) Policy studies and reports (e.g. Supporting Market Solutions to Inclusive Growth: The Case for Public Stewardship for Inclusive Innovation)(ii) Country and Regional Assessment Reports (Inclusive Entrepreneurship in Tunisia: Achievements and Ways Forward Africa and South Asia Regional Ecosystem Diagnostics with country profiles Inclusive Innovation for Peace-Building in Colombia)(iii) Inclusive Innovations - 47 Business Model Innovations with organizational profiles and seven in-depth case studies3. E-learning programs: e-learning programs have been delivered in Singapore (DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia) and India (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Millennium Alliance.There are a number of partnerships that were forged to advance the WBG knowledge leadership of inclusive innovation agenda including a high level International Development Innovation Alliance working group (IDIA) which brings together leading development organizations on the inclusive innovation agenda.
IEG thanks I&E team for the detailed update and very useful information. Social enterprise innovation program established in FY15, and since than has made significant progress towards providing capacity building to stakeholders, engaging in WB projects, and building knowledge and evidence based on social enterprises. The program seems to be new version of Development market place. The program embedded inclusive innovations in 17 WBG operations (lending and TA) across 6 GPs in FY14-16. For example SEI has provided technical assistance for and tested the feasibility of launching a Development Marketplace crowdsourcing and learning program in South Sudan and embedded this program in the PAD with a tentative allocation of US$10 million.
** please see full update attached**
The Social Enterprise Innovation program has been established to follow up on the recommendations of the IEG Evaluation of the World Bank Group Support for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in September 2013. In particular, the program delivered the following activities to respond to specific recommendations:
1. Intensify current efforts to pilot, assess, learn, and scale up inclusive innovation projects with partners
- FY15: Established the Social Enterprise Innovation (SEI) program that surfaces and supports scaling up of impactful inclusive innovations ("Social Enterprise Innovations Program Overview" is attached)
- FY14-16: Embedded inclusive innovations in 17 WBG operations (lending and TA) across 6 GPs in FY14-16. The attached results report for FY16 provides additional information on how SEI is leveraging existing WBG operational engagements and new lending opportunities to scale inclusive innovations.
- FY15-16: Mobilized USD80M external funding for inclusive innovations through partnerships with the SAARC Development Fund (designed the Social Enterprise Development Program for a USD60M social window that supports replication and scale of inclusive innovations in SAR), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (partnership to improve scale and M&E of USD20M Millennium Alliance program)
- FY16: Established knowledge partnerships with the high level International Development Innovation Alliance, the British Council and the Business with Impact Program of the Government of Finland
2. Building innovation capacity early in the development process
- FY15-16: Developed an e-Course on Scaling Inclusive Innovations that build capacity of 200 social entrepreneurs and 15 WBG staff on approaches to scale results of inclusive innovations.
- FY16: Developed a Course for Policymakers: Looking at New Ways of Solving Service Delivery Problems. Built capacity of 120 policy makers and other stakeholders of inclusive innovation ecosystems in SAR and Africa.
- FY16: Developed a course and a toolkit on Strategic Use of Crowdsourcing in Development Operations to improve capacity of WBG staff and clients for using crowdsourcing (i.e. competitions, challenges and prizes) to surface and support inclusive innovations.
3. Pilot, assess, and scale up different types of inclusive innovation
- FY14-16: Supported scaling up and replication of 67 inclusive innovations funded through the Development Marketplace program in India (focus on service delivery innovations) and Egypt (focus on jobs creation for youth and women).
- FY15-16: Developed a database of 35 models of inclusive innovations illustrated through 310 examples of social enterprises covering seven sectors
- FY16: Research on pathways for scaling up of inclusive innovations including a Brookings Paper on Scaling of Social Enterprise Innovation, review of Policy Frameworks for Inclusive Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship, and case studies of public-private collaboration to support inclusive innovation in India.
- FY14-16: Facilitated South-South knowledge exchange around successful inclusive innovation projects through delivery of 6 international events including a high level Conference on Innovation for Inclusive Growth in India (February 2015) jointly with the OECD, UNU-Merit, and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
- FY14-16: Developed a methodology for assessing the ecosystem for inclusive innovation and the social enterprise sector which was applied in 19 countries. Developed a toolkit that facilitates the ecosystem diagnostic and comparison across sectors
There are some progress to expand the WBG knowledge efforts on these area such as some pipeline projects, development market place and a knowledge note. However, as the management response describes, the progress is slow and there are some challenges. For example, inclusive innovation is not located under any practice.
Interest in inclusive innovation continues to grow as policy topic, however its implementation has a number of challenges. The Vietnam loan operation is being implemented and a number of separate proejcts are being explored, although these may not reach concept note stage within FY15. These include implementing the report on China's inclusive innovation ecosystem (where discussions are ongoing with the Government), and delivering the assessment of Ethiopia's inclusive innovation ecosystem.
Separately, within the Development Marketplace initiative of LLI, a series of policy support tools for inclusive innovation are being developed including an online course for inclusive innovation entrepreneurs, a separate online course for policy makers looking to incorporate inclusive innovation solutions within thier BOP service delivery models, and an assessment approach for inclusive innovation ecosystems (which is being trialled in southern Africa). This is in addition to the ongoing support for scaling inclusive innovation projects in India. Separately, T&C has also published a knowledge note on inclusive innovation. Currently there is no 'home' for inclusive innovation policy development, so this will be one of the areas to be subject to exploration and recommendation within the Strategic Framework development process.