Innovation Challenge + Social Innovators = SDG Success

SDG Philanthropy Platform (SDGPP) has just recently launched an Innovation Challenge on Early Childhood Education in Kenya  and Water in Ghana. We are inviting all social innovators to submit their ideas for smart solutions by 12 May.

Adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) marked setting a universal agenda for sustainable development through to 2030. Unprecedented collaboration is needed to achieve the ambitious and comprehensive Agenda2030. There is ample evidence that the current modes of development interventions are not alone sufficient to achieve the Goals. Therefore, without radically altered methods of working and new types of interventions, moving the needle on the SDGs is otherwise impossible.

The three challenges in Ghana and four in Kenya are a result of collaboration with diverse local partners from the governments, business, civil society, social entrepreneurs and academia in the countries.

Our approach offers a logical frame and a step by step process of developing “collaborative pathways” for achieving the SDGs and addressing their integrated nature and complexity as well as a need for scalable approaches. The interconnectivity of the goals means that care also needs to be given to ensure a positive initiative towards one SDG, doesn’t negatively impact another. e.g. In Ghana we convene partnerships which aim to achieve “universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water” defined as SDG 6.1. Achieving the goal means ensuring access to 40% of the population who currently lacks it. It also means additional pressure on freshwater systems and puts at risks achieving SDG 15.

Therefore our approach applies Systems and Design Thinking where we holistically analyze an issue and its elements: how they relate to each other and influence each other’s behavior, using the SDGs as the larger overarching system. The approach helps to define strategies for smart investing and how to allocate resources and ideas which maximize dividends and minimalize the destructive trade off effects on the SDGs.

Although working with local partners is the bedrock of this approach, we also draw on the vast development knowledge of the UN and bring and test new models from outside. We have worked with Banny Banerjee from Stanford University and founder of ChangeLabs and Jo Addy, founder of Continuum Advantage and adopted to our needs.

The Innovation Challenge has been possible thanks to seed funding from Conrad N Hilton Foundation, one of the leading global foundations which along with the Ford Foundation and The MasterCard Foundation pioneer work on the SDGs and support the Platform.

Learning and engaging

The initial step of the process has been to conduct an in-depth research to get a better understanding of the challenge.

In Ghana we mapped key water policies, projects and stakeholders involved as well financial flows affecting the issues. Moreover, to gain additional perspectives, we conducted interviews with selected stakeholders. The SDGPP coordinator in Ghana then connected these various conversations by organizing an “Advisory Committee”, or a group of organizations representing philanthropy, the private sector, NGOs, the government, academia all working on water. The main purpose of these conversations have been to systematically engage stakeholders to appreciate the scope of the challenge from the systems perspective, discuss key bottlenecks and opportunities and coordinate activities for more effective allocation of resources and working. Another important objective has been engaging the government to ensure that our efforts are systematically integrated into the national development plans and budget allocations.

Defining collaborative pathways

With about 40 carefully selected local stakeholders, we organized “power” workshops and collectively identified transformative solutions as well as collaborative pathways for achieving them. During the workshops, we collectively “unpeeled” and simplified complex issues through analysis of root causes and identification of drivers and blockages of progress as well as opportunities. The workshops, while fun, were interactive, dynamic and led to the following results:

1.      Defining positive and negative outcomes, analyzing root causes and interplay between the outcomes;

2.      Brainstorming on “acupuncture points” or deeply transformative innovation opportunities;

3.      Mapping “collaboration pathways” which lead to scalable and actionable solutions.

SDGPP work in Zambia is dedicated to the well-being of children following a broad consensus that without investing in children, the SDGs will not be achieved in the country. Today almost half of all Zambian children, mostly in rural areas, live in extreme poverty according to UNICEF and 25% of mothers are younger than 17 years old. The dimension which received a lot of attention at the workshop was child protection, especially of girls, against the negative phenomena of child pregnancies and child marriage. During intensive discussions, the acupuncture points or transformative innovation opportunities identified included social protection for adolescent girls. Participants emphasized interventions which alter social norms and behaviors through working with parents and traditional leaders, models for service provision in education and health and trainings and job opportunities for women at community level. The Innovation Challenge in Zambia is still being finalized, due to be launched in May so please stay tuned!

The Implementation

The levels of resources needed to achieve the SDGs are counted in trillions of dollars a year and nobody has this level of funding, not governments and not the private sector. The recent UN conference on SDG financing observed that the biggest challenge is not the lack of capital but rather aligning private sector incentives and enabling an environment for combined private and public investing. Our SDGPP work in countries also demonstrate that there are many sources of different capital, ranging from traditional loans and equities to informal and religious giving. The spectrum is very broad and its volume difficult to estimate.

Although the Innovation Challenge offers a very modest amount, the intent has been to demonstrate positive outcomes on the SDGs of working together. We aim to leverage other sources of funding available for the countries to implement the collaboration pathways that we collectively developed. We are working with networks approaches like the Advisory Group on water in Ghana and Early Childhood Action Network in Kenya. We are connecting with the governments to feed inputs into much bigger national development plans inspired by the SDGs.

We invite you to engage with us on sdgphilanthropy.org and follow us @PhilSDGs

Karolina Mzyk Callias. Follow Karolina on @karolinamzyk

The SDG Philanthropy Platform (SDGPP) is a global initiative that connects foundations and philanthropists with knowledge and networks that can deepen collaboration, leverage resources and sustain impact. The Platform is for foundations and philanthropists who are looking to support sustainable development initiatives, the SDGPP is a global facilitator that helps them optimize their resources by enabling effective collaboration with the broader development ecosystem. SDG Philanthropy Platform in countries is a unique player combining deep understanding of government and philanthropy, access to various data, and use of robust networks to provide the tools, and guidance needed to co-create and scale promising solutions.