The Atlas of Innovation for Economic Stability, published today by FHI 360, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, highlights exciting new innovations that are helping to create economic stability in the changing global marketplace. The atlas is the result of a global research and crowdsourcing effort and features 63 innovations from around the world that help individuals, households, communities and countries survive and prosper, even in the face of economic volatility.
The atlas profiles innovators and entrepreneurs and offers recommendations for how global development partners can support and strengthen economic stability and innovation. “Economic instability, driven by technological change, shifting labor and employment trends, and climate-related threats to the world’s small farmers, has become an underlying driver of chronic poverty,” said Phil Psilos, FHI 360’s Asia-Pacific Technical Advisor for Economic Development and Innovation and the principal researcher for the report. “We must bring stability out of the background and into the center of the global development conversation. Leaders from government and the private sector can use innovations featured in the atlas to promote more inclusive economies.”
Examples of innovations that are enhancing stability around the world include:
- New technologies for digital payments, banking and insurance products
- Tools that provide better data to farmers via smartphones
- Workforce monitoring and wellness
- Pensions and benefits for workers with unstable incomes
- Technologies to promote public safety and help marginalized women and ethnic minorities claim their legal rights to land and property
Many of the featured innovations build on the success of digital payment systems pioneered in Kenya, cash transfer programs in Brazil and Mexico, and new digital identity verification systems like those in use in India.
The innovations featured in the atlas help reduce the volatility and disruption in people’s lives caused by rapid economic, social and technological change, giving them a better ability to anticipate and prepare for future shocks and stresses. They serve as models of policy, program and product solutions that improve livelihoods and promote inclusive growth that places economic stability at the center.
An important finding of the atlas is that donors and development partners are collaborating successfully with local and global entrepreneurs to harness a range of innovations that improve stability and reduce the effects of volatility. In addition, private entrepreneurs and businesses are playing a major role in enhancing economic stability — a role typically associated with governments — by providing powerful information products and financial services, often via mobile phones. Citizen networks and nongovernmental organizations are also joining entrepreneurs, international donors and government–business partnerships as important sources of innovation in these areas.
For more information, please visit the Atlas of Innovation for Economic Stability.
About The Rockefeller Foundation
For more than 100 years, The Rockefeller Foundation’s mission has been to promote the well-being of humanity throughout the world. Together with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation strives to catalyze and scale transformative innovations, create unlikely partnerships that span sectors, and take risks others cannot — or will not. For more information, please visit www.rockefellerfoundation.org
