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Entries in Southern Innovator (25)

Tuesday
Mar022021

New Paper Citation For Southern Innovator Issue 3 | March 2021

 


Abduazimov, M. (2017) “Gastrodiplomacy: foreign experience and potential of the republic of Uzbekistan,” International Relations: Politics, Economics, Law: Vol. 2017 : Iss. 2 , Article 2. Available at: https://uzjournals.edu.uz/intrel/vol2017/iss2/2.

Gastrodiplomacy: foreign experience and potential of the republic of Uzbekistan by M. Abduazimov, International Relations: Politics, Economics, Law, 2017.

Launched in 2011, Southern Innovator’s first issue on mobile phones and information technology proved highly influential, profiling the work of a new generation of innovators. It has been cited in books, papers and strategic plans.  The third issue focused on agribusiness and food security, including the phenomenon of ‘gastrodiplomacy’.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2021

 


Monday
Apr062020

New Paper Citation for Southern Innovator Issue 1

Launched in 2011, Southern Innovator's first issue on mobile phones and information technology proved highly influential, profiling the work of a new generation of innovators. It has been cited in books, papers and strategic plans.  

Southern Innovator Issue 1: Mobile Phones and Information Technology.

"What a tremendous magazine your team has produced! It's a terrific tour de force of what is interesting, cutting edge and relevant in the global mobile/ICT space... This is great, engaging, relevant and topical stuff." Rose Shuman, Founder & CEO, Open Mind and Question Box, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.


Citation in Using Mobile-Enabled Devices for Engagement and Monitoring of Patient with Chronic Disease: Hypertensive Case in the International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 10, Issue 4, April 2019 (ISSN 2229-5518).

Southern Innovator's profile and reach was global. Read more here: Shortlisted For Infographics Storytelling Book | 2014 

Visual Storytelling: Infographic Design in News published by Images Publishing.The proof flats for inclusion in Visual Storytelling: Infographic Design in News.

Team | Southern Innovator Phase 1 Development (2010 - 2015)

Work began in 2010 to develop what became the United Nations magazine Southern Innovator. A highly talented global team of international development and design professionals based in New York and London collaborated with an Icelandic studio to create an innovation media brand inspired by the mobile and information technology revolutions showcasing global South innovators. It was launched in 2011 at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Cosmas Gitta, Editor-in-Chief: "Dr. Cosmas Gitta is a senior UN consultant and the former Assistant Director for Policy and UN Affairs at the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, where he oversaw the convening of various intergovernmental and interagency forums as well as the preparation of related reports and studies, including the biennial reports of the Secretary-General on the state of South-South cooperation. He was Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Southern Innovator and an e-newsletter, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions, both of which are media to share information on development related innovations with partners around the world. He was for many years Managing Editor of Cooperation South, a print and electronic development journal promoting collaboration among developing countries. Mr. Gitta holds a PhD in international and comparative education from Columbia University and he has lectured on human rights education at his alma mater, and on a range of other subjects at various campuses of the City University of New York." (From Integral Leadership Review)

Read more of Dr. Gitta's work here: Cooperation South, Getting Connected: Information and Communications Technology for Development, Number 1, 2001, United Nations Development Programme, ISSN-0259-3882.

Zhou, Yiping, and Cosmas Gitta. "Designing the Future: South-South Cooperation in Science and Technology." Cooperation South (2000).

Forging New Technology Alliances: The Role of South-South Cooperation Juma, Calestous, Cosmas Gitta, Allison Disenso, and Audette Bruce. Cooperation South Journal (2005).

The authors: Forging New Technology Alliances: The Role of South-South Cooperation Juma, Calestous, Cosmas Gitta, Allison Disenso, and Audette Bruce. Cooperation South Journal (2005).


Getting Connected: Information and Communications Technology for Development (2001).

David South, Editor and Writer: David South is the founder and senior partner for David South International and David South Consulting. He has worked around the world for the United Nations and has led a number of groundbreaking projects for major institutions. Clients have included the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH)/Institute of Child Health (ICH)/National Health Service (NHS), Harvard Institute for International Development, UNICEF, World Bank, USAID, and the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine, among others.

He has worked for, or side-by-side, with many high-level senior professionals and executives. These experienced professionals had roles under close public scrutiny and needed to show the impact of their work to a tight deadline.

He has been the editor for the United Nations magazine Southern Innovator since 2010. He also researched and wrote the influential United Nations e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions (2007-2014). He has over two decades’ experience in media and journalism (developing strong relationships with many top journalists and media professionals), health and human development, and the role innovation plays in transforming major organisations while getting the most from people tackling complex problems in challenging environments.

Audette Bruce, Managing Editor

Sólveig Rolfsdóttir, Graphic Designer and Illustrator 

Eva Hrönn Guðnadóttir, Graphic Designer and Illustrator


ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052

© David South Consulting 2020

Saturday
Dec162017

Southern Innovator in Dhaka, Bangladesh: Public Service Innovation Workshop | December 2017


Southern Innovator issues 1 and 5 at the Bangladesh workshop on public service innovation, 9-11 December 2017, and the launch of the South-South Network.

The following blog report does not reflect the views of the UNOSSC or UNDP. 

Dateline: Dhaka, Bangladesh (9-11 December 2017) - From 9-11 December 2017, I participated in the Workshop on Innovations in Service Delivery: The Scope for South-South and Triangular Cooperation held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hosted by the a2i (access to information) division of the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Office, the implementing unit for Digital Bangladesh, it was convened by the Government of Bangladesh and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

I was asked to do a presentation for the health component of the Workshop on my past experience in public sector digital innovation. This work stretches back to the beginning of the roll out of the Internet in the late 1990s. I chose three projects I have led that had a large and significant impact in the digital public space: the UN Mongolia development web portal I launched and ran for two years (1997-1999), the GOSH Child Health Web Portal I launched and ran for two years (2001-2003) and the Southern Innovator brand I launched for the UNOSSC (2010-2015). 

I also joined a panel discussion as Senior Partner representing the David South Consulting/David South International consultancy at the end of the last day (we have worked with the UNOSSC since 2007 and with UNDP since 1997 - a timeframe which saw the rise of the Internet and the mobile and information technology revolution take the global South by storm). 

As the Workshop invitation letter says, “The digitization of service delivery, user-centric methodologies, and experimentation geared towards improvement in service delivery, and the data revolution may have originated in developed countries but is now of increasing relevance for the developing world. To respond to rapidly rising expectations of the citizens, governments in both developing and developed countries are embracing approaches and tools to adopt more citizen-centric approaches in their service delivery. These practices are establishing a culture of citizen-centric innovation within governments, breaking silos of operations and helping move towards a whole-of-government planning and execution.”

According to the a2i, Bangladesh has the “world’s largest government web portal” comprising over 25,000 government websites for 43,000 government offices (Bangladesh’s population was over 162 million as of 2016 - World Bank). Bangladesh has one of the highest population densities in the world and is considered the 8th most populace country in the world (Wikipedia). In total, these government websites receive 60 million plus hits a month, according to the a2i, from an online population of 79.7 million people, nearly half the population.

A lot is at stake: According to the World Bank (which has been supporting the country since 1972), “Bangladesh has made substantial progress in reducing poverty, supported by sustained economic growth. Based on the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day, Bangladesh reduced poverty from 44.2 percent in 1991 to 18.5 percent in 2010, and is projected to decrease to 12.9 percent in 2016.

The country achieved the MDG 1 on halving poverty five years ahead of time, with 20.5 million people rising out of poverty during the 1991-2010 period. In parallel, life expectancy, literacy rates and per capita food production have increased significantly.  Progress was underpinned by strong economic growth, with 6 percent plus growth over the decade and reaching to 7.1 percent growth in 2015/2016. Rapid growth enabled Bangladesh to reach the lower middle-income country status in 2014.      

However, sustained growth has rapidly increased the demand for energy, transport and urbanization. Insufficient planning and investment have resulted in increasingly severe infrastructure bottlenecks.”

Arriving in the capital, Dhaka, on the 9th of December, it was clear to see what the World Bank is highlighting: the “severe infrastructure bottlenecks”. Just like other megacities, Dhaka is clogged with traffic and suffers from the air pollution this causes (one of the worst cities for this in Asia). But these are just the visible signs of success if you think about it (as frustrating as that might be), as booming economies combined with rapid urbanisation, if not planned well, tend to lead to traffic congestion and high levels of air pollution. 

The country’s rising living standards since 2000 and impressive gains in the provision of information and mobile technology services and connectivity, reveal a country brimming with potential and capable of getting a handle on its many development challenges. The streets are visibly lined with small and medium enterprises and there are construction projects in various states of completion all around Dhaka. At the airport, glossy posters advertise many real estate developer’s dreams and show-off the heavy construction equipment for sale or lease from China and Russia. 

The population no longer suffers from food crises such as the 1974 famine, which killed 1.5 million people (Christian Science Monitor). According to the UN, Bangladesh cut chronic hunger by half since 2000 and is considered one of the success stories from the past 10 years that the rest of the developing world can look to as they push to eliminate hunger by 2030 as part of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) (https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2015/0617/From-famine-to-food-basket-how-Bangladesh-became-a-model-for-reducing-hunger). Clearly, Bangladesh is a country that can get things done when it draws on the power of its population.

According to Digital Bangladesh, with a deadline of 2021, it has achieved half its goals to get the population online and its economy and government services online. In 2017, the country made US $800 million from exporting ICT (information and communication technologies) products and services. It is currently building 12 hi-tech parks with the ambitious goal to export US $10 billion in ICT services from them by 2030 and make US $5 billion by 2021. 

The streets of Dhaka. Workshop

Sharing ideas at the Workshop.

Speaking at the Workshop, Anir Chowdhury, Policy Advisor to the Access to Information (a2i) Programme of the Prime Minister’s Office, believes the concept of South-South Cooperation (SSC) is about enlightened self-interest but at present there is no framework for SSC in Bangladesh and most cooperation is ad hoc. If global South countries are not cooperating, then they are just re-inventing the wheel, he added. SSC is about avoiding feeling each country has to make it own their own: SSC can facilitate development leapfrogging and prevent leaving country success to chance. However, there needs to be better ways to communicate Southern solutions.

And Bangladesh has a good story to tell to the global South: To date, Bangladesh’s digital public service delivery has saved the country US $2 billion in cost for government services plus 1 billion man days in time spent trying to carry out tasks using government services, according to the a2i. With this success under their belts, the hope is to market Bangladesh as a world leader in innovation. To go from MDGs poster child to leader of the global South. 

UNOSSC Director and Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on SSC, Jorge Chediek (https://www.unsouthsouth.org/about/unossc-director/), emphasised the need to tell stories of how South-South is changing the world; the pressing need to change the narrative around the global South in order to be able to achieve the 2030 agenda.

It was an honour to be invited to present my three case studies on public sector digital innovation (GOSH Child Health Portal, Southern Innovator Magazine and the UN/UNDP Mongolia Development Portal). All three share the same characteristics: a public demand for digital resources and a need to create high-quality content on limited budgets and to build public confidence in those resources. These projects were also engaging with enormous complexity and needed to find a way to simplify this for online readers.

I was impressed by the level of debate at the Workshop, and how Bangladesh’s digital initiatives are communicated (the excellent use of infographics and simple step-by-step explanations), and the overall excitement and energy around digital and the digital economy in Bangladesh. But, importantly, the foresight to give attention to the coming wave of automation and robotics (the so-called fourth industrial revolution) and how this will affect Bangladesh. 

In the health workshop, we shared two projects for the reverse engineering component: the GOSH Child Health Portal and the magazine Southern Innovator (link to PowerPoint). Using the Reverse Engineering tool (see images below), each project was broken down as to how it worked and also what was its contribution to South-South Cooperation. 

I shared experience from the early days of digital public innovation in the late 1990s. This has included applying digital to crisis recovery, healthcare modernisation in the early 2000s, and the campaign to achieve the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), as well as during the mobile/information technology and social media revolution in the global South, which took off after 2007. 

Reverse Engineering

GOSH Child Health Portal (2001-2003)

Issues discussed here included the recent online fake news scandals and how important it is for the public sector to offer the antidote to this with quality, factual digital information and resources. The GOSH Child Health Portal was one good example, where it entered the crowded online medical and health information marketplace and succeeded in drawing a large online audience by offering high-quality, peer-reviewed resources, thoroughly fact-checked and proofread and presented using high-quality online design. By the end of the project’s two-year timeframe, it was receiving over 7 million hits a month and was acknowledged as a trusted global source in child health. The content is cited in many books and papers, as well. 


Reverse engineering GOSH Child Health Web Portal, 2001-2003.

Southern Innovator Magazine (2010-2015)

Throughout the Workshop, I heard over and over again about the urgent need for a more cohesive platform for sharing Southern innovations and initiatives. Many complained this was currently very fragmented. While there are many media and development organisations documenting innovations and stories, there is no one-stop shop for countries to go to. 

The Southern Innovator brand (incubated and developed by the UNOSSC) is a good example of what can be achieved with a more cohesive and strategic approach. Southern Innovator, first launched in 2011 by the UNOSSC, was able to leverage its limited resources to reach a large global audience via the web and social media. The brand became established with innovators and five issues were published (from 2011 to 2015). An Action Plan for scaling-up the Southern Innovator brand was also developed with the UNOSSC in 2015 (but awaits funding). 

The original Southern Innovator website (southerninnovator.org, now southerninnovator.com) did fulfil the role of offering a one-stop shop for stories on global South innovation and these stories were widely cited in websites, papers and books on the global South. But the terrain has shifted radically in the global South - and at the UN - since Southern Innovator’s launch in 2011. With the widespread adoption of mobile and digital technologies, the opportunities to communicate innovator solutions have never been better but require a more sophisticated approach to be effective. In fact, we now exist in a world where the solutions already exist to the major problems affecting the global South (and even the funding is available through many sources). The problem is not the lack of solutions, innovators or technologies and business models to resolve problems (both e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions and Southern Innovator proved this) but how people can access these resources and in a format that makes sense to them and is available when they are searching for a solution. With modern computing technologies, this is no longer an unsolvable problem. And the people to connect with to do this also already exist in the global South. What is missing is a coherent and cohesive approach. The multiplicity of development actors in this case are hampering effective action by dissecting and scattering resources, leaving end-users confused and poorly communicated with in many cases. As an example, there was a definite need to assist people in understanding how the 17 SDGs can fit into practical actions and a definite psychological need for simplicity: a problem highlighted by former UNDP head Helen Clark back in 2015 (https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jul/07/sustainable-development-goals-will-be-hard-sell-for-united-nations).

For UNDP, with its human development approach and presence in most countries, an opportunity exists to rapidly accelerate development gains and shorten the time it takes to recover when disaster or conflict strikes. Something that came out of the Workshop is the presence of excellent examples of global knowledge sharing already underway for decades around the world. Think of the scientific community in general (working on vast projects such as the CERN facility in Switzerland), or aerospace industries, or the global adoption of the principles of air safety managed by IATA in Montreal, Canada, or sport - all proof countries do successfully share knowledge and adopt common, high standards when they feel it is a priority and necessity. No country wants to be frozen out of flight routes, for example. 


Reverse engineering the Southern Innovator magazine brand, 2010-2015. 

Panel Discussion

At the closing panel discussion, I was asked how to engage more donors to be part of the South-South Network. I said there is a need to get people excited and show why the South-South Network is different; how it is related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There needs to be a communications strategy and to establish some ambitious first goals that are original: to show that this is part of a clear trend. International aid and development is a crowded space so there is a need to show how the Network would tackle the challenges of the global South in the 21st century head-on, with a more effective solution. And of course, I championed the existing and successful Southern Innovator brand developed by the UNOSSC since 2010 as, potentially, part of this communications strategy. 


Senior Partner David South is third from the left on the panel. Photo: Yoko Shimura

Senior Partner David South is centre at back with the South-South Network for Public Service Innovation, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2017.

Finally

This impressive embracing of e-initiatives and all things digital was visibly missing at the airport. On the way in, long lines and then a confusing scramble to buy a visa created confusion for visitors. As the first impression for visitors, this could be a great place to show-off Bangladesh’s digital capabilities. 

And finally, as the World Bank says, this all about job creation and increased living standards: “The World Bank has identified job creation as the country’s top development priority. Bangladesh needs to create more and better jobs for the 2.1 million youths entering the job market every year. But to do so, Bangladesh will need to remove the barriers to higher growth posed by low access to reliable and affordable power, poor transportation infrastructure, limited availability of serviced land, rapid urbanization and vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters, among others. “

Bangabandhu International Conference Center hosting Digital World 2017 and Dhaka's Shahjalal International Airport.

Further reading and links: 

South-South in Action: Citizen-friendly Public Service Innovation in Bangladesh

Digital Bangladesh: Digital Service for All

GOSH Child Health Web Portal

UN/UNDP Mongolia Development Portal 

Southern Innovator and Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

© David South Consulting 2017 

Thursday
Nov302017

Southern Innovator and the Growing Global Innovation Culture: Background Paper | 2013


Publisher: David South Consulting/David South International 

Category: Background Paper

Published: July 2013

Client: United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC)

Introduction

The topic of innovation is ever more frequently mentioned by policy-makers and politicians. Whole business schools dedicate themselves to the subject, while governments and international organizations now often set aside a department or division dedicated to innovation. The European Commission’s Innovation Union is one example (http:// ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/index_en.cfm).

This paper argues that the rise of a global innovation culture is not just hype, a marketing catch-phrase or the latest piece of government jargon. It is really happening and it is snowballing with the aid of the communications revolution. It is interlinking with increasing global trade links, extending to what were some of the most remote corners of the earth. Increasing urbanization is drawing people into new circumstances and causing chaos in many lives, but also spawning challenges that spur people to seek solutions.

The current global economic crisis which started in 2007/2008 seems to have accelerated this tendency as many question the validity and sustainability of the current economic paradigm and global structure. The over-reliance on debt to create prosperity (from housing bubbles to credit cards) has exposed the failure of many institutions, governments and companies - small and large - to innovate. The use of debt - rather than innovation - to create economic growth and prosperity leads to innumerable problems. Resources are not used efficiently (a serious problem on a finite planet with a growing population heading past 7 billion) (UN), and technological and scientific advances are held back as there is no incentive to change old ways when money is easy and cheap. 

While many countries of the global North, particularly in Europe and North America, have experienced a severe economic crisis since 2007, the countries of the global South - while not in any way immune to the problems experienced by the global North - are experiencing a profound perception change.

The space created by the crisis in the North has directed investment wealth and attention towards the global South and emerging market countries. One of the more amusing manifestations of this has been the endless - and very creative - deployment of acronyms for each new investment opportunity, BRIC, CIVETS,etc. Countries and regions which were subject to decades of negative publicity - or just completely ignored - were now ‘sexy’.

In just eight years from 2000 to 2008, BRICs countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - saw their combined share of total world economic output rise from 16 to 22 percent. This led to a 30 percent increase in global output during the period, showing how key these countries were to global prosperity in the 21st Century. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries make up nearly half the world’s population and are regional leaders. Taken together, their gross domestic products (GDPs) are not far behind the United States.

What's next?

Ruchir Sharma’s Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles (http:// www.amazon.com/Breakout-Nations-Pursuit-Economic-Miracles/dp/0393080269) argues that the BRICs are now entering a more stable growth path and thus will not see the rapid-fire expansion and quick profits investors have become used to in the past decade. 

"The BRICs,” Sharma told Forbes magazine, “were last decade’s team.”

The buzz surrounding the BRICs countries over the past decade has been justified by their impressive growth rates, declining poverty levels, modernizing economies and societies and growing middle class populations.

China alone saw its gross domestic product grow by US$5 trillion between 2001 and 2011.

But other countries are now coming up. Sharma points out that Indonesia was the best performing emerging market in 2011 and has a GDP that will surpass a trillion dollars in the coming years.

He also believes Sri Lanka and Nigeria are economies to watch.

Sharma says funds flowing into emerging market stocks grew by 478 percent between 2005 and 2010, a huge jump compared to 2000 to 2005, when the total grew by 92 per cent.

Investors who watch the emerging markets predict the hot growth areas for the next decade will be around energy, technology, and agricultural resources. All are areas ripe for significant innovation.

To make sense of the complexity of fast-emerging economies, the flurry of new investor acronyms try to find the common attributes they share. One country cluster is called the CIVETS: Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIVETS). Another is PC-16 (Post-China16), comprising the16 countries best suited to succeed China as the world's low-cost, export-oriented economy hub - Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, ...

Read the rest of the Background Paper online here: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=omNnBgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator+background+paper&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Background Paper for the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2017

Monday
Nov272017

Southern Innovator and the GSSD Expo | 2011 - 2014

Beginning in 2011 and ending in 2014, each issue of Southern Innovator was launched at the annual Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) run by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC). The issues (there were five) would connect with that year's Expo theme and were intended to reinforce the solutions presented at the Expo, as well as those solutions discovered through research for the influential United Nations e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions. An Expo was not run in 2015 for the following reason: U.S. Finds Macau Billionaire Guilty in U.N. Bribery Case

Studies have shown the importance of reading to real change. Not just online, but in paper form. The retention of information and knowledge is greater when a person reads something in a book or a magazine. Another factor is quality design (which makes the published material both attractive and effective). Trashy, gaudy or slap-dash design, while it has its place and context, is not suitable for well-funded, transparent, public organizations seeking to communicate across borders in a professional manner. Southern Innovator was designed following the UN and UNDP design guidelines at the time, while also adhering to the UN Global Compact and the UN Consultants Remuneration Guidelines. The content was also written to follow those guidelines as well as the Plain English Campaign, which seeks to reduce the presence of "gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information". On top of this, the magazine benefited from experience: the experience of one of Iceland's top graphic designers and illustrators, the team based at the UNOSSC in New York who oversaw the editing and proof reading, and the researcher, editor and writer who has led many successful and award-winning publishing ventures, including during "one of the biggest peacetime economic collapses ever".   

Southern Innovator Issue 1: Mobile Phones and Information Technology was published in 2011 and launched at the Expo in Rome, Italy.

Southern Innovator Issue 2: Youth and Entrepreneurship was published in 2012 and launched at the Expo in Vienna, Austria.

Southern Innovator Issue 3: Agribusiness and Food Security was published in 2012 and launched at the Expo in Vienna, Austria.

Southern Innovator Issue 4: Cities and Urbanization was published in 2013 and launched at the Expo in Nairobi, Kenya (the first time in Africa).

Southern Innovator Issue 5: Waste and Recycling was published in 2014 and launched at the Expo in Washington, D.C.

© David South Consulting 2017