Innovation for Development
Innovation for Development is a programme led by Fondazione Cariplo together with Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, aimed at supporting innovation in the field of international co-operation towards development, focusing in particular on strengthening ties between Italy and Africa.
Active since 2016, the programme’s activities have been structured along three working axes:
- calls for proposals and opportunities for collaboration between civil society organisations (CSOs) active in international co-operation and the world of Italian and African innovation
- training of human capital and creation of a community of practice with hybrid skills aimed at practitioners of international development co-operation
- events and meetings – digital and face-to-face – to encourage networking and continuous exchange of best practices.
Project pathway and results
From 2016 to 2023, Innovation for Development supported 59 open innovation projects, reaching about 40,000 direct beneficiaries and 600,000 indirect beneficiaries, involving civil society organisations, innovators and local communities and institutions in both Italy and Africa. In the same period, the programme promoted 26 training and capacity-building courses organised by 17 technical partners. These focused on innovation topics (data for development, entrepreneurial approach and leadership, project management, impact), for which there were a total of 2,200 applications and approximately 1,400 participants.
The events served as opportunities for meeting and networking for the Innovation for Development community, in which 10,000 people were involved in 2023. Over three editions (2017, 2019, 2023), the Innovation Open Days brought together around 1,500 people, in person and in hybrid mode, whereas the Innovation Open Talks webinar series, created to run during the pandemic, reached 600 participants.
Consolidation
In 2024, the programme entered its consolidation phase with Innovation for Development – Next, focused on follow-up of projects funded with open innovation calls for proposals on the set-up of a legacy project to make available all learning materials and innovations produced (the website has become a multimedia consultation portal), including for training purposes. As part of the latter, support was provided for the 2024 Social Enterprise Open Camp (Catania, October 2024), led by Fondazione Opes-Lcef and CGM Consortium; the Low Code Academy of Impact Skills with CISV; the GET DATA! (data collection and management) course run by Gnucoop and Soleterre; the digital volunteering initiative led by the Digital for Humanity association.