UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series
On the Delivery of Pro-Poor Innovations: Managerial Lessons from Sanitation Activists in India
Shyama V. Ramani, Shuan SadreGhazi & Geert Duysters #2010-018There is an emerging body of literature that examines how pro-poor
product innovations should be created and what business models should
accompany them. However, there is little on actual implementation
practises and the present paper attempts to fill this void by analyzing
the findings of the literature and confronting them with the actual
field practises of sanitation activists in India. It demonstrates that
the common thread that unifies progressive sanitation activists is their
adoption of a ‘market based approach’. Market failures stemming from the
demand side are shown to be due to problems of expressions of demand and
their mismatch with perceptions of the value of the innovation. It also
identifies how activists go beyond the academic model of assessing need,
appropriateness of technology and demand to include practises for
‘accompaniment’, ‘sustainable maintenance’ and ‘generation of knowledge,
demand and innovation spillovers’ in an endogenous fashion, providing an
alternative to the ‘centralized platform delivery’ model.
Keywords: Pro-Poor Innovation, Sanitation, Delivery, Bottom of the
Pyramid, implementation
JEL codes: O310, O330, O320
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872
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