The innovation ecosystem – a network on micro and macro scale

There is a need to re-imagine development for the 21st century. We are facing a new set of social, economic, and environmental challenges that change and move faster than ever. With 90 Labs covering 114 countries, UNDP is creating the world’s largest and fastest learning network on sustainable development challenges. The past months we have experienced just that, being part of a network- an innovation ecosystem where the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.

The first encounter with the network

The last weeks has been busy for the AccLab GW. After finishing the bootcamp we started working right away towards launching the initiative. It has been a dynamic journey where we have interacted on a micro scale, with our new colleagues within UNDP but also with a range of national grassroot innovation communities. At the same time the pre-launch gave us incentive to reach out to our colleagues and other Lab teams in the world and we got to experience the macro scale of the network with the strong enthusiasm to constantly support, share and reflect.

Spreading the word about AccLab GW and the upcoming launch event became an opportunity for personal meetings, endless discussions and glimpses of synergies and collaborations. The dynamic that was build up, grew into two stakeholder workshops, one physical workshop and one virtual workshop – as we understand the importance of stakeholder is not just at local level.

Physical stakeholder workshop

The physical stakeholder workshop took place the 25th of November 2020 in the Brazilian Cultural Center in Bissau with a limited number of attendees due to COVID-19 restrictions. Mrs Shirley Carvalhêdo Franco made a thoughtful opening to the event followed by Mr Tjark Egenhoff, Resident Representative of UNDP Guinea-Bissau, who dove into the background of the global lab network and why there is an urgent need to rethink development for the 21st century. This was continued by an informative presentation by the AccLab GW team where the frontier challenge, which is “the lack of basic and quality services”, amongst other practical things were discussed.

So what do we mean when we talk about “public basic services” in the context of Guinea-Bissau? We have defined public services as “all services provided by the public authorities in order to meet the needs of the society”´, however, this commitment can be outsourced to private organizations.  Some of the areas that lack services the most in Guinea Bissau are health, transportation, education, basic sanitation, energy, waste management and infrastructure.

The frontier challenge

Possible root causes to the frontier challenge is the endemic state fragility leading to an instable political and governance system, leading to the inability of the state to provide basic services, leading to an unmonitored public administration and lack of infrastructure, leading to a vicious cycle of the state's inability to provide the basic needs of a population. In Guinea-Bissau it is common to hear complaints about care in hospitals or any other public agency, also there is no civil registry, these are just some of the evidence that this is an important challenge in the country. Long lines, excessive bureaucracy and poor quality of services provided have prevented a considerable number of the population from making full use of the public service. The most affected by this fragility are urban communities, rural communities, women and children. The presentation developed into a dynamic workshop and discussion, were the different stakeholders interacted with each other. The structure of the workshop was based on tools gained from the Accelerator Lab Bootcamp, modified to fit our context, for ex. “The radar of the present” and “The radar of the future” which allowed us to brainstorm and discuss existing and possible solutions to the frontier challenge.

The workshop was attended by local innovators, public institutions, grassroots and civil society institutions and other unusual partners living closest to the challenges we face. The dynamic of the group led to collective insights about interesting ways of which people already are tackling their everyday challenges as well as ideas of how to improve and create solutions for the future.

Virtual stakeholder workshop

The virtual stakeholder workshop was structured in an equivalent way and was attended by the diaspora organizations, international civil organizations, UN agencies, innovation hubs, potential future partners, among others. Our colleagues from UNDP as well as social media, LinkedIn and Twitter played a crucial role in reaching out and connect with unusual partners. We were very lucky to have AccLab Angola present, sharing their experience from the first year of work as an example of what the lab can look like when it is in action, as opposed to our presentation with focus on what we aim to do. The interactive part was done through the online application Mural, yet another tool made visible to us during the bootcamp, which allowed us to gather our thoughts and reflect on them collectively.

We are only in the beginning of our journey, but it is already clear to us that we are part of a global network and an ecosystem on both micro and macro scale, where the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. We have been reaching out to other lab teams around the world and have been met with a never-ending enthusiasm and support of sharing resources, thoughts and information, and the many encounters with stakeholders, local innovators and possible partners has helped us better understand how we can work and think around the challenges we face. The AccLab GW could not work successfully as a single agent of change. To be able to address the challenges we face, we need to constantly give and take from the national and global network we are part of.