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Health System Innovation in India Part I: India’s health system challenges

Adam Wagstaff's picture

India’s health system faces some major challenges. In some respects, the hill India’s health system has to climb is steeper than that facing other developing countries. The good news is that the innovation that India is famous for in other sectors, as well as in health technology, is now starting to make itself felt in the health system. Not only may these ideas benefit India’s poor; they may also provide food for thought for other countries.

In this post, we sketch out the challenges facing India’s health system. In the next two, we outline two innovative approaches—one government, one private—in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Flattening innovation

Michael Oluwagbemi's picture

The subject of innovation is slowly but surely on the rise; as nations realizing the steady shift from resource to the inevitable knowledge based global economy demand high speed innovation to stay ahead of the competition. From Japan to Colombia, Washington DC to Bulawayo - politicians are emphasizing retooling education for innovation.

Five ways to boost climate innovation in Ethiopia

Anthony Lambkin's picture

Semi-constructed skyscrapers dotting the horizon, shoppers, commuters and students flooding the sidewalks and a sea of trucks, cars and buses - all fighting for their own space along Bole road, Addis’ main thoroughfare. The signs of a decade of 10% annual economic growth for Ethiopia were evident in the cab ride to the hotel. The energetic vibe of Addis also reminded me that despite rapid advancements, it was still a country with one of the highest poverty rates in the world, large rural populations without energy access, significant bio-diversity and environmental risks and a nascent private sector to deal with it all. 

To engage the private sector was the reason I was in Ethiopia. I was preparing for the business plan development of an Ethiopian Climate Innovation Center (CIC) similar to the Kenyan CIC launching later this year. The $15 million program will invest in and support early-stage companies wanting to become more involved in the booming local and international cleantech markets while becoming profitable and competitive.

However the suite of services developed for each CIC look different in each market and is therefore designed via a rigorous gaps, opportunities and needs analysis with local stakeholders.  While in Ethiopia, I met with a few of the 100-plus stakeholders that will take part in the design phase of the Center. Public and private sectors, development partners, NGOs and academia were eager to share their expertise and experience of what was needed for a CIC in Ethiopia. These are my thoughts following those discussions:

Thailand's innovation challenge: complex products, simple tasks

Frederico Gil Sander's picture
Umbrella factory in Chiang Mai (courtesy of rustybadger under a Creative Commons license). Thailand's workers need to contribute more complex tasks to the su

Is the bicycle one of our best and oldest transport innovations yet?

Julie Babinard's picture

I was recently invited to a panel discussion to comment on the movie ‘With My Own Two Wheels’  (http://www.withmyowntwowheels.org) which illustrates how bicycles can serve as a missing link to development.  It follows the transformation taking place in the lives of 5 individuals.

Blogging from the field: Kadogo and Oyugis, Yogurt Results from Kenya

Karen Vega's picture

Hi I am Karen Vega, and am responsible for oversight and monitoring for the Development Marketplace project portfolio. I am on mission visiting projects in Tanzania, Kenya and Burkina Faso. I am currently in Kenya visiting the Pro-biotic Yogurt project implemented by The Ministry of Health of Kenya in partnership with its research institute KEMRI and the University of Western Ontario.

The objective of this project is to establish a sustainable grass-roots food based development initiative for the purpose of improving the health and nutrition levels among vulnerable social groups in Oyugis-Rachuonyo district. The innovative character of the project is connecting the appropriate technology, training and local resources (dairy) to produce a community based intervention program. When pro-biotics are consumed in adequate amounts Canadian and Nigerian studies have shown pro-biotics to be effective in treating uro-genital infections and diarrheal disease including people living with HIV/AIDS!

50 Years of Innovation in Transport

Anna Barbone's picture

The World Bank's 2011 Transport Forum was held from March 28th to 31st, 2011.  It  focused on 50 Years of Innovation in Transport - Achievements and Future Challenges.

Here is what some World Bank Transport Staff think about transport innovations and the World Bank's contribution so far and its future role. 

Can the Diaspora contribute to the creation of jobs in the Middle East and North Africa?

Sonia Plaza's picture

Recent attention has shifted from analyzing the impact of skilled migration on sending country labor markets to a broader agenda that also considers the channels by which diasporas promotes trade, investment, innovation and technological acquisition. Several developed and developing countries are increasing their ties with their Diasporas to take advantage of these transfers beyond remittances. It will be important to assess what could be the potential of strengthening the linkages with their Diasporas for countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Can these countries tap into their Diasporas as a source and facilitator of innovation, research, technology transfer, trade, investment and skills development?

Nolland and Pack (2007) have analyzed whether Arab-communities in North America and Europe can play a similar role as countries in Asia (China, India, South Korea and Taiwan, China) in revitalizing the Middle East. The authors also indicated that “given the limited extent of manufacturing activity in the Middle East and the lack of equivalents to the Indian Institutes of Technology, it would make difficult to benefit from this option.”

Disseminating Innovations in the Health Market

Maria Belenky's picture

How do you provide health care for the rural poor when medical professionals are scarce or unaffordable?

One emerging solution is to computerize medical knowledge. In 2007, Arogya Ghar captured the attention of the global health community when it was selected as one of the winners of the Development Marketplace global competition.

The Day After Tomorrow: If You Want To Grow, Learn

Otaviano Canuto's picture

Why is it that some countries are more developed than others? A country is “less developed” not only because it lack inputs (labor and capital) but because it uses them less efficiently. In fact, inputs are estimated to account for less than half of the differences in per capita income across nations. The rest is due to the inability to acquire, adopt and adapt better technologies to raise productivity. As an engine of growth, the potential of technological learning is huge—and largely untapped. Four global trends have begun to unlock that potential, and are bound to continue.

First, the vertical decomposition of production across frontiers allows less-advanced countries to insert themselves in supply chains by initially specializing in

Development 2.0 Brought to You by Social Entrepreneurs

Parvathi Menon's picture

We traveled an hour outside of Jaipur to Laporiya village, in the Jaipur District. One of the 41353 villages across 32 Districts of Rajasthan that depends largely on agriculture and dairy for sustenance.

The total cultivated area of the state encompasses about 20 million hectares and out of this only 20% of the land is irrigated. Ground water level is available only at a depth of 30 to 61m. Yet with minimum inputs, the agricultural sector of the state accounts for 22.5 per cent of the State economy.

How DM Project in India Filled Empty Water Pots

BP Agrawal's picture

BP Agrawal is a double Development Marketplace winner.  He won in 2006 with his Sustainable Rainwater Harvesting project and in 2007 with Walk-In Clinic for the Masses. This is being reposted on the occasion of Blog Action Day 2010.

Visit Sardarpura, a sleepy Indian village 150 km (93 miles) southwest of New Delhi.  Women have gathered at the village square. They are tapping empty matkas (earthen water pots) to produce melodious beats. One is humming the “lament of bride": "Dhola thare desh men, moti marvan aant.  Daroo milti mokali, paani ki koni chhant."

Oh, Beloved!
In your land
Not a drop of water 
Brides have to fetch water from miles
It is hard to survive but for your love
Thus laments a bride.

 Sudden commotion drowns the melody. Children start running in the dusty streets and yelling “Pani Aagayaa. Paani Aagayaa” (Water has come! Water has come!). Women wrapped in vibrant colors rush with their matkas resting on their waists. The water tanker had just arrived — after two weeks.
 
That is the perennial scarcity of drinking water in rural India!

The wisdom in African crowds

Aly-Khan Satchu's picture

"Erica Hagen in her piece in Development Outreach talks of the map Kibera effort being a ' first step toward local ownership and creation of shared information.' And in that comment I feel she has hit the nail on the head.'

As an investor, you throw in the previously quite entrenched Africa perception gap and you have a very interesting situation. I would describe the situation as a potential laboratory for innovation. An incredibly youthful skew to the population (60% of Kenyans are under the age of 24) surely is also an accelerator. And hence my desire and interest of late to get on the ground, pound the pavement and see if this has actually been a catalyst for innovation.


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