Making Waves

Making Waves

20

A Caribbean Social Innovation Guide

Emerging Needs & Opportunities

Connecting the Ecosystem through Institutionalised Coordination

The research shows that the Caribbean has many of the ingredients needed for social innovation to thrive. Across the region, there are passionate people, strong organisations and promising initiatives already creating positive change. The opportunity now is to strengthen the ecosystem so that more ideas can grow, more organisations can thrive and more communities can benefit. Finding New Ways to Finance Innovation Many innovators have the ideas and determination to create change but struggle to access finance. New financing approaches (alternative financial and de risking instruments), such as blended finance, impact investment, first-loss guarantee funds and character based lending, could help reduce risk for lenders while opening doors for innovators and social enterprises to access the investment they need to grow. Such gender transformative innovation funds, aligned with the EU Gender Action Plan III (GAP III), could help more youth led, women-led and underrepresented innovators access the capital they need to grow. Moving from “Soft” to “Hard” Interventions & Building the Right Infrastructure The Caribbean has invested significantly in “soft interventions” like training, mentoring and business support. The next opportunity is investing in “hard interventions” like the spaces, equipment and technology that help innovators move from ideas to implementation. Shared makerspaces, laboratories, processing facilities and innovation hubs can help innovators develop, test and scale new products, services and solutions.

The Caribbean has many excellent organisations, universities, businesses and community initiatives, but they are not always well connected to each other. Addressing complex social challenges requires stronger coordination between organisations so that they can learn from one another, reduce duplication, share resources and build on successful ideas. Stronger national and regional coordination and knowledge sharing can help innovative approaches become part of mainstream development rather than stand-alone projects and can also help innovations spread more quickly across communities and countries instead of remaining isolated within individual projects or islands. Designing for Real Life There is an opportunity to design innovation ecosystem interventions that better reflect the realities of people’s lives. Programmes that recognise caregiving responsibilities, transportation challenges and different ways of learning can help remove barriers for women, young people and others who may otherwise be excluded from opportunities to innovate and lead. Designing programmes that include flexible schedules, online participation, childcare support or transport assistance can help more people, especially women, participate fully, move from frontline voluntary labour, and realise their potential.

01 . Understanding Social Innovation in the Caribbean