David South Consulting

Tag: SDG12

  • Making Bamboo Houses Easier to Build

    Making Bamboo Houses Easier to Build

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    More than 1 billion people around the world lack decent shelter. Of these, the majority live in urban areas, usually in slums and informal settlements (UN-HABITAT). Latin America has a serious shortage of adequate housing: in Colombia, 43 percent of the population needs decent housing; in Brazil, 45 percent; Peru, 53 percent.

    The challenge is to provide good quality homes without significantly harming the environment – and with constrained budgets. Bamboo – cheap, strong, quickly renewable and beautiful to look at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo) – is an ideal solution to replace traditional wood lumber. In Bolivia, pioneering work is underway to improve the quality of homes and buildings made with bamboo.

    Bamboo is the fastest growing woody plant in the world, sometimes growing over 1 metre a day. Bolivia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia) has about 17 identified bamboo species, of which five have a significant economic value. Around the world, there are 1,000 species of bamboo. They grow in a wide variety of climates, from cold mountains to hot tropical regions.

    Once called the “poor man’s timber” – a temporary building material to replace once there is more money – bamboo is now getting the respect it deserves. Bamboo for housing has a long history in Latin America, stretching back 4,500 years to ancient civilizations. In Asia, it has long been a traditional construction material. But most of the existing bamboo dwellings in Latin America are 50 to 100 years old.

    The most popular species of bamboo used in South America is Guadua, which is known for being large, straight and attractive.

    “In Bolivia, there is no other building material more competitive in costs,” said Jose Luis Reque Campero, coordinator of the Bolbambu Programme of the Architectural Research Institute, Universidad Mayor de San Simon, Bolivia (http://www.umss.edu.bo/).

    “Bamboo is the material that requires less energy, followed by wood and concrete, with steel in last place, needing energy necessary for its production 50 times greater than that required by bamboo.”

    Campero also says bamboo is much less expensive than traditional building materials.

    “But the biggest advantage is certainly the possibility of planting bamboo, and then reaping houses,” he said.

    Campero has focused his efforts on a key component of bamboo housing: the joints that bind the bamboo poles together. Driven by the desire to find ways to improve the ease of building bamboo homes and their strength, Campero came up with the Bamboo Bolivia Space Structures, Structural System: EVO (BBSS-EVO) (named after Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales).

    Traditional joints took a long time to make and required power tools and complex instruction manuals. Simplifying the building techniques necessary for bamboo construction was important because, while bamboo was cheap, the labour costs were high.

    The joint looks like a giant two-headed Q-Tip. Each end is made of four pieces of bamboo, connected by a long screw with bolts on each end taken from old cars. The joint is inserted inside the bamboo poles and snaps shut, joining poles tightly together and, as each piece is assembled, looking like a child’s building toy as the structure of the bamboo home takes shape.

    The new joint was easier to assemble and was quickly adopted by local builders. It also allows for a vast range of structures and shapes to be built, limited only by imagination and physics.

    Devising joints made from bamboo has the advantage of avoiding the weight and cost of bringing in concrete, especially to remote areas.

    “The manufacturing process is fully in the workshop and indoors,” said Campero, “which in addition to allowing a degree of quality control in production, improves working conditions for staff and protects the material.”

    The whole building process adheres to “the principles of the famous phrase: ‘do-it-yourself’.”

    The Evo joint allows for flexibility and easy assembly and disassembly, enabling the builder to move around parts of the structure and not be wedded to the original structural plan. This has the advantage of customizing the building to its physical location.

    Working in the tropical forests of Cochabamba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochabamba), Campero has been testing his designs with the local people, who were looking to improve the tourist infrastructure in the resort town of Cristal Mayu.

    Costa Rica in Central America – ironically a country without indigenous bamboo plants – has used its National Bamboo Project of Costa Rica (http://www.unesco.org/most/centram1.htm) to prove it is possible to both cultivate bamboo and use it to provide housing for the poor, confirming the wisdom of millions of people: bamboo is economical, convenient, safe and looks great.

    Campero has received a great deal of interest in his innovations and is looking for funding partners in 2009 to take his work further.

    He has this advice for other builders and designers: “Stick to developing local technologies, use what you have and innovate, use native materials and the local environment for the development of elements, components and construction systems. Don’t rely on advanced technology tools for manufacture, and stay in harmony with the human need for creativity.”

    Published: December 2008

    Resources

    • UNEP, the UN’s Environment Programme, has produced a report on bamboo biodiversity and how it can be preserved. Website: http://www.unep-wcmc.org
    • The Asian Development Bank is using its Markets for Poor programme to link bamboo products to marketplaces, helping poor communities. Website:http://www.markets4poor.org/
    • The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. Website: www.unhabitat.org

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/26/bamboo-becomes-transport-option-for-the-south/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/26/colombian-architect-proving-strength-and-beauty-of-bamboo/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/11/decent-and-affordable-housing-for-the-poor/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/housing/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/16/housing-innovation-in-souths-urban-areas/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/11/housing-solution-for-worlds-growing-urban-population/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/12/rebuilding-after-chinese-earthquake-beautiful-bamboo-homes/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/17/tiny-homes-to-meet-global-housing-crisis/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Business as a Tool to Do Good

    Business as a Tool to Do Good

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The United States’ fast-paced and highly inventive technology sector is re-shaping philanthropy and proving it is possible to do good and make money at the same time. The approach taken by these philanthropists is flavoured by their experiences in the cut-throat world of technology, where innovation is a necessity and where re-invention and risk are de rigeur. They share many of these qualities, counter intuitively, with millions of the world’s poor as they struggle day in and day out to survive and get ahead.

    Differing from the Fairtrade movement – whose origins are in NGOs seeking guaranteed fair price for goods – so-called ‘venture philanthropists’ and ‘social entrepreneurs’ focus more on profit and growth. They draw their inspiration from the online networks that have rocked the business world in the past few years, and look to apply a model of constant innovation.

    The past ten years have seen non-profits more and more adopt the language and methods of business. For ‘venture philanthropists’ and ‘social entrepreneurs’, business is the tool to do good. By breaking out of the narrow view of philanthropy as about giving away money, it becomes possible to see the connections between doing good and making good money, venture philanthropists argue. And as more people think this way, more tools are emerging to make it easier and easier to do.

    The highly successful online auction house Ebay’s founders Jeff Skoll and Pierre Omidyar are part of a wave of new thinking from California’s high-tech Silicon Valley that is shaping the way huge sums of private capital get invested in social change.

    ‘Venture philanthropists’ focus on a small portfolio of grantees that make the most of the investment. By giving them large, long commitments, including money for infrastructure such as staff and computers, they don’t spend all their time fundraising. And unlike traditional philanthropists, they get in their offices and work with them like partners instead of waiting for annual reports, and they hold the grantees to quantifiable goals.

    The success of Nobel Prize winner Mohammed Yunus and his microcredit bank, Grameen, has spawned an even more ambitious venture. The Omidyar Network – led by billionaire Omidyar – calculated it would take between US $50 and US $60 billion to provide micro-lending services to the entire world’s poor. The Network is currently putting together the financing to launch this new micro-lending facility across the world. According to Omidyar, private capital is functionally limitless. Look at it that way, he said recently to the Los Angeles Times, and “$60 billion is nothing.”

    Billing itself as a nonprofit venture capital firm, the Acumen Fund uses the principles of design to solve the problems of the poor. Just as the Procter & Gambles (PG) and Motorolas (MOT) of the corporate world conduct extensive ethnographic research on consumers, Acumen finances companies that create systems from the bottom up. “Start with the individuals,” said founder Jacqueline Novogratz. “Build systems from their perspective. Really pay attention, and then see if they can scale.”

    Under Novogratz’s leadership, the New York-based fund manages $20 million in investments in companies that fall within three portfolios: health, water, and housing. It’s not a lot of money compared with any of the traditional venture funds in Silicon Valley. But Acumen’s goal is not to launch initial public offerings. Rather, Novogratz and her team are building prototypes for new business models that measure returns in social benefits as well as monetary rewards.

    “We are betting on entrepreneurs, we look for a strong management team,” said Brian Trelstad, Chief Investment Officer of the Acumen Fund. “We currently have US $20 million in investments in six countries. We hope to take that to US $100 million in the next five years. We are beginning to see a really rich pipeline developing in our investment countries and more high quality investment opportunities coming our way. We are looking for people who are passionate about their approach and who continue to build their business from the perspective of the people in need.”

    Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of the successful search engine Google, started their philanthropic wing, Google.org, following Ebay’s example. They endowed Google.org with stock now worth about US $1 billion. Then they followed Omidyar’s example and set themselves up as a for-profit network.

    “In the old American business model, the relationships between a firm and its investors, bank, suppliers and customers tended to be very arm’s length,” says Annalee Saxenian, dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Information. “You would make a deal and report back after some specified period of time. The new business model is much more engaged. Everyone learns from one another, and there is a continuous flow of information. The firms are more specialized, but they see each other as collaborators.”

    The approach, just like in the pell mell pace of the computer industry, is relentless. Just as computer software and hardware manufacturers follow a constant improvement and innovation cycle, so can social entrepreneurs.

    Published: March 2007

    Resources

    • The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford’s Said Business School, hosts the Skoll World Forum every year to promote entrepreneurial solutions to social problems.
    • Ashoka: Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. It identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs with innovative and practical ideas at the launch stage. They then receive a living stipend for three years to focus on their ideas.
    • Social Ventures Partners: While only focused on the Seattle, USA area, SVP offers a model that can be applied throughout the global South. The vision of the founders was to build a philanthropic organization using a venture capital model, where partners actively nurture their financial investments with guidance and resources.
    • Generation Investment Management: Started in 2004 with former US vice president Al Gore, they only focus on investments that are long-term, sustainable and that they really believe in.
    • Omidyar Network: Started by Ebay’s founders, it funds for-profits and non-profits who promote equal access to information, tools and opportunities, and encourage shared interests and a sense of ownership among participants.
    • Skoll Foundation: The mission of the Foundation is to seek out social entrepreneurs who are already implementing successful programs on a small scale, and then through three-year awards, support the continuation, replication or extension of the program. Issues funded are: tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, economic and social equity, institutional responsibility, and personal security.
    • SV2: Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund: A partnership of successful technology entrepreneurs, it pools funds to support social entrepreneurs by giving money and giving time – venture philanthropy.
    • Google.org: It uses the talent, technology and financial resources of the successful search engine to tackle global poverty.
    • Acumen Fund: A non-profit venture fund that invests in market-based solutions to global poverty. The Fund supports entrepreneurial approaches to developing affordable goods and services for the 4 billion people in the world who live on less than $4 a day.
    • TechnoServe: Helps budding entrepreneurs turn good business ideas into thriving enterprises. With funding from the Google Foundation, they are launching a Business Plan Competition and an Entrepreneurship Development Program in Ghana.

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Creative and Inventive Ways to Aid the Global Poor

    Creative and Inventive Ways to Aid the Global Poor

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”. Poverty can be a major spur to invention, and invention a route out of poverty – but only if the poor in the developing world can get the recognition, capital and support for navigating the legal and bureaucratic hurdles that will inevitably stand in their way. Thankfully many new initiatives acknowledge this.

    Contrary to popular perception, the poor do have buying power, as has been documented by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in their paper “The Economic Lives of the Poor”. Surveying 13 countries, they found those living on less than a dollar a day, the very poor, actually spent 1/3 of their household income on things other than food, including tobacco, alcohol, weddings, funerals, religious festivals, radios and TVs. The researchers also found that the poor increasingly used their spending power to seek out private sector options when the public sector failed to provide adequate services. As awareness of global poverty has grown in the past decade, a new wave of scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs has started to apply their considerable brain power to tackling the everyday problems of the poor.

    Afrigadget, a website celebrating African ingenuity and inventions, serves as a goldmine for small-scale entrepreneurs looking for inspiration. All the inventions on the website share something in common: they are grassroots, homemade and handmade solutions to everyday problems of the poor. Examples of inventions profiled on the website include multi-machines, basically a 3-in-1 machine used as a metal lathe, mill and drill press, all built by hand from old car engine parts; a US $100 bicycle motor that gets 50 kilometres per liter made in Kisumu, Kenya; hand-made African wire toys; do-it-yourself telephone handsets which are then used to run roadside phone booths as a small business; and Malawian homemade windmills used to generate electricity for both home use and as a business to recharge mobile phone and radio batteries.

    Another African invention tackles the urgent need for inexpensive or free common toilets that are self-financing. In the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, where 60 percent of the city’s inhabitants live, the lack of decent toilet facilities has led to the widespread use of so-called “flying toilets”, plastic bags filled with excrement and then flung as far away as possible. The resulting build-up turns the streets into a foul-smelling sludge in the rainy season and causes disease outbreaks like diarrhoea and typhoid fever. Up to now, conventional attempts to provide communal toilets have failed to resolve the problem, because they charge too much to use. But an innovative solution has been developed: bio-latrines that capture the methane gas produced by the toilets for sale as gas for cooking, heating and lighting, and the sludge for fertilizer. A joint initiative between a Kenyan company, Globology Limited, and the NGOs Umande Trustand Ushirika Roho Safi Laini Saba, it is partly funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). The toilets are used by 500 people a day and are self-financing from the profits made by the sale of the gas and fertilizer.

    In India, social entrepreneurs have stepped in to help the rural poor navigate the Indian government bureaucracy. Drishtee, an internet service provider – offers a fast-track to government services used by the poor in rural villages through its e-government services information kiosk. Using a franchise model, it has branches spread out through 160 locations in the country and serves 1.5 million people. Drishtee’s niche is that it saves the poor the exhausting and draining time and long travel normally required to access any government services. Drishtee’s “ask a government employee” service brings government to the poorest people.

    Operating out of New Zealand and South Africa, Ecologics is an engineering company focused on developing appropriate technologies for sustainable livelihoods in developing countries. All their inventions are built around the principles of low maintenance and costs, and ease of use. Its African operations are based in South Africa and run under the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) scheme. It builds step powered pumps, the Step Action Water Pump which works just like a gym step exercise machine and is a highly efficient way to power the pump – for small scale mining and agricultural irrigation. The pumps can deliver 5,000 to 6,000 litres of water per hour, weigh just 11 kilograms, and have been field tested in Fiji, Lesotho and South Africa.

    Published: April 2007

    Resources

    • NextBillion.net: Hosted by the World Resources Institute, it identifies sustainable business models that address the needs of the world’s poorest citizens.
    • A paper on social lending via the web: PDF version
    • African Inventors Museum: The International African Inventors Museum promotes positive images and self-esteem in children and adults and teaches people of all nationalities about the contributions that Africans throughout the world have given to society.
    • AU-WIPO Prize: The AU-WIPO is an initiative of the Africa Union Commission and the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is a leading continental award in Africa honoring the scientists and technologists whose efforts are towards addressing critical problems in Africa and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
    United Nations e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions visited the Berlin, Germany headquarters of start-up betterplace.org in 2009. It was the dawn of the Berlin digital tech boom.

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Indian Toilet Pioneer Champions Good Ideas

    Indian Toilet Pioneer Champions Good Ideas

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Access to adequate sanitation and toilet facilities is critical to making development gains. Yet this simple fact of life often gets overlooked, especially in fast-growing cities where populations are on the rise or in transit. Out of an estimated 2.6 billion people in the world without toilets, two-thirds are in southern and eastern Asia (World Toilet Organization).

    It is easy to take toilet technology for granted in developed countries, but in the fast-growing urban world of the global South, increasing access will be the dividing line between a future of good human health and dignity, or misery and poor health. The biggest gains in human health always come about once people have access to clean water and sanitation. Yet this proven fact gets lost in many places for a wide variety of reasons.

    One country currently failing to meet the needs of its population is India. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, by 2030, 70 percent of India’s jobs will be created in its cities, and 590 million Indians will be city-dwellers. An enormous infrastructure task lies ahead for India: a city the size of Chicago needs to be built every year. But so far this challenge is not being met, leaving the country with the largest number of urban slum dwellers anywhere in the world. Housing is just not keeping up with populations’ needs.

    As K.T. Ravindran, a professor of urban development, told the New York Times: “We require radical rethinking about urban development. It is not that there are no ideas. It is that there is no implementation of those ideas.”

    It is this ability to act that makes the Sulabh International Social Service Organization stand out. The Indian non-governmental organization (NGO) sees itself as a movement and is a passionate advocate for toilets and toilet innovation for the poor and underserved.

    Sulabh was founded in 1970 by Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, who saw the vast task ahead. “I thought the challenges to provide toilet facilities have been overcome in rich countries; it has still to be met in developing countries like India,” he said.

    So far, Sulabh has brought together 50,000 volunteers across the country to build toilets and sanitation facilities.

    The organization’s success flows from understanding that it needs to do more than supply the ‘hardware’ of the toilets; it also needs to address the ‘software’: ideas and innovation and concepts.

    The organization has directly built 1.2 million household toilets – but the government of India has built a further 54 million toilets based on the designs made by Sulabh. It’s an example of a good idea multiplying its impact when picked up by others.

    While 10 million Indians use a Sulabh-built sanitation facility each day, according to the group’s website, an estimated 300 million are using a toilet based on Sulabh’s designs.

    Most influential is Sulabh’s two-pit, pour-flush toilet (www.sulabhenvis.nic.in/Sulabhtechnology.htm). It consists of a toilet pan with a steep slope using gravity to flush the pan. Water is poured in to the pan to flush the toilet and the waste goes into either one of two pits. As one pit fills up with waste, waste is diverted to the second pit. After around 18 months, the first, filled pit’s waste becomes a safe, organic fertiliser suitable for agriculture and the fertiliser’s value covers the cost of emptying the pit. The successful design has been evaluated and approved by UNDP and the World Bank.

    Sulabh has also been designing ways to get power and energy from toilets, building 200 biogas plants that turn the gas generated from the human excrement deposited in the toilets into a source of energy. Biogas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas) is a clean-burning gas that can be made from animal, plant and human waste with the right technology and is a green solution to the need for gas to cook and run electricity generators.

    Pride of place for the NGO is its vast toilet and bath complex at the holy shrine of Shri Sai Baba in Shirdi, Maharashtra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra). Millions flock to the shrine every year, but it lacked proper sanitation facilities. To solve this problem Sulabh’s local branch has built a vast complex occupying two acres. The brightly coloured and palace-like facility has 120 toilets, 108 bathing cubicles, six dressing rooms, and urinals and can serve 30,000 people a day. There are telephones and 5,000 lockers for tourists to keep possessions safe.

    There are also three biogas plants connected to the facility, generating electricity and hot water for bathing used by the toilet and bath complex. This solves the puzzle of how to fund the utilities. Water discharged from the facility is used to irrigate the surrounding green spaces.

    Sulabh has also built a museum dedicated to toilets and toilet technology (http://www.sulabhtoiletmuseum.org). The museum places the toilet as a critical part of human civilisation and shows how it fits in with the cultural context of India. Toilets and toilet designs from around the world and throughout history are gathered together and make a fascinating journey through this essential human need.

    Published: May 2011

    Resources

    1) World Toilet Organization: World Toilet Organization (WTO) is a global non- profit organization committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide. Website: http://www.worldtoilet.org

    2) World Toilet Day: On November 19 every year, this event draws attention to the lack of access for 2.6 billion people. Website: http://www.worldtoilet.org

    3) Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life: An exhibit by the prestigious Wellcome Collection on the human relationship with dirt and hygiene in history. Website:http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/dirt.aspx

    4) World Toilet College: Established in 2005, the World Toilet College (WTC) started as a social enterprise, with the belief that there is need for an independent world body to ensure the best practices and standards in Toilet Design, Cleanliness, and Sanitation Technologies are adopted and disseminated through training. Website:http://worldtoilet.org/ourwork3.asp

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023