Innovation at USAID

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Oct 13 2011
Innovation, fortification, medicine

Innovation can help produce development outcomes quicker, cheaper, and at a wider scale.

Innovation can help produce development outcomes quicker, cheaper, and at a wider scale.

  • At USAID, we use "innovation" to refer to novel business or organizational models, operational or production processes, or products or services that lead to substantial improvements (not incremental ones) in executing against development challenges. USAID seeks innovations -- whether in USAID's own business processes, in identifying and supporting effective development solutions, or in applying technology to development challenges -- that produce development outcomes more effectively, cost efficiently, and that reach more beneficiaries.
  • Innovation is not new to USAID. As Administrator Shah has pointed out, USAID "helped develop the innovations that produced the Green Revolution and pioneered Oral Rehydration Therapy in Bangladesh." Over the course of USAID's history, the Agency has adopted numerous business processes and helped identify and supported development practices that were novel and drastically improved our delivery of development outcomes.
  • USAID is seeking to foster a culture conducive to innovation across the Agency and creating mechanisms and programs to incubate and test innovations. Innovative programs are being mainstreamed and implemented by bureaus, offices, and missions across USAID.

EXAMPLE AREAS OF EMPHASIS

USAID Forward: USAID Forward emphasizes the need to create and embrace a culture of innovation across the Agency by identifying, highlighting, and celebrating innovation and creating mechanisms to attract transformational approaches and solutions to longstanding development challenges. The Agency-wide reform agenda also calls for significant changes to the way USAID does business to improve development outcomes. These changes can include increasing partnerships, specifically with non-traditional partners, reforming procurement and implementation practices, and emphasizing evaluation.

Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) is a mechanism designed specifically to identify innovative development solutions wherever they exist (e.g. private-sector and non-profit organizations, educational institutions, etc.). Solutions must demonstrate cost-efficiency and incorporate rigorous testing of their effectiveness. From evidence-based outcomes, successful solutions will be brought to international scale. By providing partners a mechanism for developing solutions rather than just implementing programs, emphasizing scalability from the beginning, and staging financing based on evidence of impact, DIV offers an example of USAID's own efforts to innovate new mechanisms and processes that will produce development outcomes more effectively, cheaply, and quickly.

Grand Challenges for Development focus global attention on specific, solvable development problems by defining the problem well, identifying a reachable goal, and using a variety of mechanisms to encourage a wide array of solvers to focus their attention on developing sustainable, effective solutions. Each Grand Challenge for Development will be undertaken in partnership with other like-minded organizations, emphasizing the need for collaboration and cooperation around the World to meet the challenge. "Grand Challenge for Development: Saving Lives at Birth", our first, was announced in March 2011 (savinglivesatbirth.net).

Partnerships: USAID is leveraging resources from the private sector, other donors, and other government agencies to accelerate our ability to reach development outcomes.

EXAMPLES OF INNOVATION AT USAID:

  • Oral rehydration therapy, which USAID helped pioneer, is one-tenth the cost of previously-used intravenous treatment.
  • USAID's adaptation of the military's jet injector versus syringes was critical to eradicating smallpox around the world.
  • Through the USAID Development Credit Authority (DCA) mechanism, USAID is able to leverage an average of $28 in private sector funds for every dollar spent by the U.S. Government.
  • USAID and the South African Technology Innovation Agency research produced the first evidence that microbicides effectively and safely reduce the risk of HIV and genital herpes transmission from men to women. Researchers estimate microbicides can prevent 1.3 million fewer new infections and over 800,000 deaths prevented over the next 20 years in South Africa.
  • Global Alliances for Effective Disaster Relief: USAID has created an integrated strategy for identifying strategic partners to respond quickly to natural disasters, enabling USAID connections and expertise to leverage and mobilize private sector resources. These partnerships address each stage of USAID disaster relief: preparedness and mitigation, acute response, recovery, reconstruction, and transition.
  • DIV grants, like a $100,000 DIV grant supporting the development of a self-test for pre-eclampsia, the second highest cause of maternal deaths worldwide, that could be 97% cheaper than a comparable current alternative.
  • Using Brand Appeal to Fight Global Trafficking: From 2006 to 2010, USAID and MTV Networks developed an MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) to fight human trafficking. Partner contributions leveraged $20 million to reach more than 300 million households in over 25 countries.
  • Global Development Alliances, first established in 2001, help leverage (at an average rate of over 4:1) the resources and capabilities of partners in addressing development challenges.
  • LAUNCH, a partnership between USAID, NIKE Inc., NASA and the Department of State, brings together visionaries and entrepreneurs, whose world-class ideas, technologies or programs show great promise for making tangible impacts on both the developed and developing world (launch.org).