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

Southern Innovator as a Knowledge and Learning Tool | November 2017

Why even bother printing (on paper) Southern Innovator as a magazine? "What about the trees and we live in the digital age!", some might say.

There is evidence and science supporting the need to always publish Southern Innovator in print as well as online. First, a study of the World Bank's online publications came to a shocking conclusion: A survey in 2014 found a third of World Bank publications are never downloaded, 40 per cent were downloaded just 100 times, and only 13 per cent were downloaded more than 250 times in their lifetime (The Washington Post). As The Washington Post pointed out, these are publicly funded publications with the intention of contributing to policy debates and providing solutions to the world's problems. So, if nobody is reading them, or just a handful are, that actually does matter if you care about positive change in the world.

Secondly, a Norwegian study in 2014 from the Stavanger University (part of Europe-wide research into the impact of digitisation on the reading experience), found "... that paper readers did report higher on measures having to do with empathy and transportation and immersion, and narrative coherence, than iPad readers," according to lead researcher Anne Mangen (The Guardian).

An earlier study the researchers did also found "students who read texts in print scored significantly better on the reading comprehension test than students who read the texts digitally" and that "Studies with students, for instance, have shown that they often prefer to read on paper", continued Mangen in The Guardian.   

Another issue is Internet shutdowns, outages and censorship. All of these have been on the increase, especially in Africa (africanews.com). To put it simply, you cannot electronically shutdown a piece of paper. 

Design to show and teach.

Innovations Summary.

Innovations Summary.

A fast-changing world.

Knowledge Summary.

Knowledge Summary.

Being a Southern Innovator: An Urban Guide.

Turning Waste into Wealth: A Southern Innovator's Guide.

Managing the workflow: Getting things done.

© southerninnovator.com 2017

© David South Consulting 2017

David South Consulting Online for Seven Years | November 2017

When it first launched in 2010, the David South Consulting (davidsouthconsulting.com) website was beautiful but sparse. Designed by one of Iceland's top graphic designers and illustrators, Solveig Rolfsdottir, it was basically an online CV (curriculum vitae). 

A lot has happened since: the new global magazine Southern Innovator was launched, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) came to an end in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched, and the UN adopted an innovation and South-South agenda, and so did many other countries, including China. And the content of the website has expanded to reflect this. The entire archive of the influential United Nations e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions can be found here, as well as many resources chronicling the international development journey from the late 1990s.   

We even moved to a new studio and headquarters next to a bird sanctuary and nature reserve (matching our green words with green actions)!

The front page of the David South Consulting website.   

About David South Consulting.

Services at David South Consulting. 

David South Consulting had an Alexa rank of 7,243,014 in 2017.

David South Consulting international clients.

Practice Zones and HQ and Studio for David South Consulting.© David South Consulting 2017

Southern Innovator on the UNOSSC Website | November 2017

Southern Innovator among the South-South publications available from the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

Southern Innovator among the South-South publications available from the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

All five issues of Southern Innovator available from the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

© southerninnovator.com 2017

© David South Consulting 2017

Information Accelerates Crisis Recovery and Development | 1997

The United Nations Information Shop (UN Info Shop) was established by UNDP Mongolia in 1997 and was managed by the UNDP Mongolia Communications Office. Context is everything. At this time, Mongolia was still recovering from the chaotic and turbulent transition from Communism to free markets and democracy begun at the start of the 1990s, called by some "one of the biggest peacetime economic collapses ever" (Mongolia's Economic Reforms: Background, Content and Prospects, Richard Pomfret, University of Adelaide, 1994). There was a thirst for information: access to the Internet was still limited and access to mobile phones was just the preserve of the rich. As a legacy of the past, information, especially that about the outside world and the country’s true economic and social conditions, was restricted. During the years of Communism, even simple travel from one place to the next was strictly regulated. 

While today we can take it for granted that the Internet, and mobile and smart phones, deliver the world’s information in seconds, this just was not the case in the late 1990s in Mongolia. 

The UN Info Shop quickly became a crucial resource for students (many schools and universities were nearby) and it became a first stop for many wishing to access the Internet. It also substantially raised the profile of the UN in the country as the public could, for the first time, enter the UN building and discover what the UN was doing in the country. They could also visit the UNDP Mongolia Communications Office and meet its team. 

P. Dagmidmaa reads the Human Development Report Mongolia 1997 in the UN Info Shop.

An announcement in the Blue Sky Bulletin about the launch of the new journal Cooperation South.

The UNDP Mongolia Communications Office Team 1998 outside the UN Info Shop in the capital, Ulaanbaatar: David South, Bayasgalan and Bayarmaa.Many initiatives grew from the talented and dynamic UNDP Mongolia Communications Office team. Here are links to some of them: 

Ger: Mongolia's First Web Magazine 

Mongolian AIDS Bulletin

UN/UNDP Mongolia Development Web Portal 

Case Study: UN + UNDP Mongolia | 1997-1999

© David South Consulting 2017