The unmet needs of disadvantaged people living indeveloping countries pose a complex challenge for development planners, but like many challenges, it also provides an opportunity for creative communities and individuals to develop alternative approaches. One such approach, which I have been intimately involved with for more than two decades, is leveraging grassroots innovation. The traditional approach to helping disadvantaged people is a top-down one, in which government, NGOs, or businesses create solutions and provide them to the poor. Many large corporations, for example, have convinced themselves that they can serve the poor by producing and delivering goods and services at an affordable price—the bottom-of-the-pyramid approach. These businesses, governments, and aid organizations seldom consideracquiring ideas or innovative products and services designed at the grassroots bythe people they are trying to assist. The question of reciprocating what those people have shared with themseldom arises. Despite the billions of dollars spent on developmental aid, we still do not find many databases, either online or offline, of innovative solutions developed by disadvantaged people themselves. We should not discount completely the merit of providing certain goods and services to the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid, but the fact remains that poor people are not at the bottom of the knowledge, ethical, or innovation pyramids. Unless we build on the resources in which poor people are rich, the development process will not be dignified and a mutually respectful and learning culturewill not be reinforced in society. The search for inclusive development has become imperative because social tensions and disquiet among marginal communities have been increasing. Many governments spend more resources fighting their own people—often considered to be rebels or extremists—than on investing in the ideas and imagination of local communities and individuals. Unless we build on the resources in which poor people are rich, the development process will not be dignified and a mutually respectful and learning culturewill not be reinforced in society. Instead of treating economically poor people as asinkof public aid, assistance, advice, and corporate goods and services, we should treatthem as asourceof ideas, innovations, and institutional arrangements with which formal public and private institutions can engage. Many triggers can push an innovative idea to evolve intoa full-fledged solution. Sometimes an accident leads to a new discovery. Innovations can also emerge when an idea in one field is applied in a totally different field, which I call analogue innovation. For example, Yusuf, an innovator in Rajasthan, developed a groundnut digger that is pulled behind a tractor. As it ispulled along, the digger picks up the soil and the uprooted pods, agitates the soil and pods, drops the soil, and keeps the pods in a sieve. An entrepreneur from another part of India heard about the digger, licensed the technology, and adapted it as a beach cleaner. The principle was the same but the domain was very different. Engagement between the formal and informal sectors can take place if we recognize, respect, and reward creative grassroots knowledge systems. Enabling local communities and individuals to convert their ideas into products and services—by blending modern science and technology, design, and risk capital—constitutes the heart of grassroots innovation. Building on People’s Knowledge Taking a grassroots approachto innovation is not easy. Before embarking on this approach one must first understand and re-conceptualize the interfacebetween natural, social, ethical, and intellectual capital.Natural capitalwas the first capital to come about when societies began to enclose resources and started asserting individual or collective property rights. Theboundaries around a resourceor the limitations on its extraction gave rise to the value of natural capital. It can be saved, exchanged, or consumed with or without renewability. R
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:37:33 +0000
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