Extract

This chapter is devoted to case studies of social innovation observed in India. Fourteen case studies are organized into five key areas of social innovation: health (healthcare delivery and medical diagnostics), agriculture (small-scale farmers), rural development (inclusive development for rural populations), livelihoods in the informal sector, and renewable energy. The cases demonstrate how social innovation combines technological products and organizational processes. We focus on how various stakeholders conceptualize challenges, and how they develop approaches to best resolve bottlenecks, which are in part infrastructural, in part social practices. By providing training and improving accessibility, affordability and usability, solutions are increasingly designed to incorporate the goals of environmental or livelihood sustainability.

In many instances, social innovation is possible when different stakeholders, whether from the state, MNEs and corporations, NGOs or social entrepreneurs, find their own reasons for collaboration. Each brings prior experience from their domains with different technologies to conceptualize and innovate around a particular social challenge.

India was ranked 112 among 191 countries by the WHO’s World Health Indicators in 2000. Since then, the situation has not improved, as shown in Table 7.1. India’s health system, at least in comparison with other BRICS countries, leaves much to be desired, especially when viewed against the backdrop of other health indicators (see Chapter 5, Table 5.2). Although India is the largest producer of pharmaceuticals in the Global South in volume terms (Horner, 2014), its reliance on imports for medical devices and diagnostics (Datta et al...