Rebecca Hanlin

Inclusive innovation: an architecture for policy development

The past two decades have been characterized by an increasing uncoupling of economic growth and social and economic development. Outside of China, the numbers living in absolute poverty have remained stubbornly large; in Africa, they have increased substantially. Although this uncoupling has multiple sources, the trajectory of innovation (large in scale, capital intensive in nature and destructive of the environment) has contributed to these outcomes. Reorienting towards a more ‘inclusive innovation’ path has an important role to play in overcoming exclusion. However, we have only a weak understanding of the definition, nature and dynamics of inclusive innovation, and this paper seeks to fill this conceptual gap. It argues that inclusive innovation needs to be understood and developed in the context of a holistic conception of the innovation cycle, the distinction between process and product innovation and the roles played by the poor as both producers and consumer. It further charts the growing interest of private sector actors in inclusive innovation (including, but not confined to transnational corporations seeking the ‘fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’) and large global funds working in tandem with the private sector and governments. Consideration is also given to the role which growth trajectories play in determining the direction of innovation and in promoting linkages between the globally absolute poor (incomes below

New drugs and health technologies for low-income populations: will the private sector meet the needs of low-income populations in developing countries?

1pd) and those with discretionary cash incomes living in the margins above

Health Systems Strengthening: Rethinking the Role of Innovation

1pd. The paper concludes with a call for a more holistic and balanced approach to inclusive innovation to be adopted by a range of stakeholders so that resources are deployed most effectively to aid the recoupling of growth and development.

Evaluating Product Development Partnerships: Beyond Quantitative Metrics

This paper argues that the development of targeted health technologies for poor people will require a new mix of technology, organizations and institutions which we conceptualize as new social technologies. Using a technology–market matrix, we explore these new social technologies which may sometimes include multi-national companies but are also associated with developing country private sector firms and not-for-profit product development partnerships. The paper argues that these collaborative forms of social technology are most likely to generate and deliver new physical technologies and innovation processes required by low-income users.

Below the Radar: What does Innovation in Emerging Economies have to offer other Low Income Economies?

The achievement of universal health coverage necessitates strong health systems that are capable of delivering essential health services for the purpose of improved health. Health in this context should be seen not only as the absence of disease and infirmity alone but also as an integrated element, of and contributing factor, to economic and social development built on equity and inclusion. Health innovation is increasingly recognised as a key factor in health systems strengthening. Although the term is most commonly associated with technological (product) innovation, it is in fact in the realm of social (process, organisational and institutional) innovation that most health systems strengthening takes place.

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) in a Changing Landscape of Vaccine Development: A Public/Private Partnership as Knowledge Broker and Integrator

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have been promoted as a means of overcoming the inefficiency of the public sector and of bringing in the advantages of private sector skills and approaches. PPPs involved in product development – ‘product development partnerships’ (PDPs) – are being promoted as a means of incentivising the development of health products for a number of diseases, from high-profile ones like malaria to lesser known diseases such as Chagas disease (a tropical parasitic disease). These ‘neglected diseases’1 are those that predominantly affect populations in developing countries, who lack the purchasing power to buy the medicines they need (if such medicines exist at all). As a result, there are many diseases which do not trigger sufficient market incentives to stimulate private sector investment into R&D. The argument for the use of a PDP mechanism to incentivise neglected disease product development therefore tends to be framed in standard neoclassical (micro-) economic terms, as one of market failure,2 PDPs being seen as a way of overcoming the fact that solutions for these diseases are not being produced through traditional market mechanisms (i.e. by the private pharmaceutical sector). The simplest way of explaining this argument is that supply does not equal demand, as a result of problems affecting both the supply and the demand side.