How social innovation can tackle local problems and drive global change

In Germany, when you need OTC medicine urgently, you simply walk to the closest licensed pharmacy and buy the product you need to get or stay healthy. In Nigeria, things are much more complicated. In a country of 200 million people, there are only 5,000 pharmacies operating in only 25% of the country. The rural areas are particularly underserved. As a result, instead of accessing medicines in one of the licensed pharmacies, many people in Nigeria end up buying their medicines from other places. This is not without its risks: The World Health Organization recently demonstrated in a study that 17% of the medical products in Nigeria are counterfeited. MyMedicine - a medicine ordering platform built by one of the Bayer Foundation Women Empowerment Awardees, Abimbola Adebakin, and her team managed to significantly increase access to medicines for customers across Nigeria. Of course, the challenge of a lack of access to health resources is merely one specific example of several global challenges that we need to face head-on.

Climate change, poverty, global inequality and hunger put the prosperity of people around the world at risk, particularly for those who are most vulnerable. They have an increasingly significant social dimension and threaten social prosperity as much as economic prosperity for millions of people around the world.

While these major challenges of our time are global, multifaceted, and interconnected, they affect different communities in very different and often highly localized ways. This year has underlined this reality once again: A drought in Madagascar and the subsequent famine devastated farming communities and caused unprecedented levels of severe food insecurity for the Madagascan people. Severe rain and the following floods left parts of Germany in havoc. People in Turkey and Greece had to leave their homes behind as wildfires threatened their lives and livelihoods. Local communities had to bear the brunt of these disasters.

Expectations for solutions

Given the nature of the challenges of our time and their far-reaching consequences, our expectations for the solutions to tackle them are high. We all hope for new and innovative technologies, breakthrough business models or public policies that build more resilient societies and tackle these problems comprehensively and at scale from the get-go. And without a doubt, it is true that it will require a fundamental shift in attitude that prioritizes sustainability, inclusion, and equality to mitigate the impact of climate change and create a more equitable and inclusive world.

Why it takes social innovation and entrepreneurship

However, while thinking big and aiming for all-encompassing solutions has its merits, it is clear that no single organization, company or country can drive the transformation we need. We must simultaneously consider the impact that smaller, local solutions have for vulnerable communities around the world – true to the idea of thinking globally and acting locally. The smaller-scale ideas and innovations of social entrepreneurs around the world provide much needed relief in a variety of different ways for so many communities.

Social innovation and entrepreneurism are and will be a crucial building block to overcome societal problems. What counts is the capacity of social innovation projects to have a lasting positive social impact, whoever is behind them. And it is worth emphasizing that social innovations can be developed not only by social enterprises, public institutions, associations, and activists, but also by the private sector.

Creating an ecosystem for change

Through creativity and dedication and a deep understanding of the needs of their communities, social entrepreneurs play an important part in finding and implementing solutions for the benefit of society – but they often cannot do it alone. By supporting and collaborating with social innovators, external partners like public institutions, foundations and corporates can play a decisive role in bringing about the change that is needed. Whether it is providing capital and expertise or giving access to their networks – external actors are crucial in building an ecosystem that helps social entrepreneurs thrive and implement their solutions to social problems.

As social innovation calls not only for creating a solution to a social problem, but also for implementing that solution, strong partners can help through the entire life cycle of a social start-up – from initial seed funding to scaling up the business and reaping the social benefits the long run. And there are plenty of instances for successful collaborations between social entrepreneurs and external players that worked together to maximize sustainable impact.

Take the example of Vetsark, a social start-up based in Lagos, Nigeria, that is helping farmers and veterinarians across Africa by helping them digitize their businesses and by connecting them to farm experts and veterinary professionals to local farmers who are in need of their services either during emergencies or for routine checks. Through this help, local farm owners can improve their productivity and output – giving them the chance to improve their own lives as well as those of the communities they serve. The Bayer Foundation worked with Vetstark in its accelerator program, giving the organization access to experts, training and funding to scale its offering, to reach more farmers across Africa, to professionalize their services and to ensure that its impact is made to last.

The bottom line is: We need more social entrepreneurs and innovators and we need more partners that help them in building the best social businesses that they can be. That is our mission at the Bayer Foundation and I am looking forward to the change that we can help facilitating.