Bringing the Environment back into our Understanding of Inclusive Innovation | UNDP in Philippines
Building Better for a Greener Future
On March 26th 2021, the United Nations Development Programme in the Philippines ran a “Building Better for a Greener Future” webinar that offered a tangible link between inclusive innovation and green recovery. Speakers from the Central Bank and the Department of Finance, in particular, emphasize their commitment to advancing policies that encourage (sustainable) finance for small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro SMEs (MSMEs) in order to boost their investment in green futures. Some of the policy developments that were presented and discussed in the webinar includes the:
In the webinar, the presenters and panelists alluded that COVID-19, despite all the suffering and disruption that it has wrought, also serves as a critical juncture – a chance to adjust systems – as it has raised public consciousness of the need for adjustments, particularly with respect to the socio-economy and the environment. COVID-19 provides an important chance to rethink who is conceived of, and supported, as an innovator, and how to promote innovation based upon the social purpose of the activities. It stands as a chance to ask what we mean by inclusive innovation that has “social purpose” at its heart.
In the webinar, Mercedita Sombilla, the Undersecretary of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Regional Development Group, explained that a core aim is to achieve a “better, greener and smarter recovery from COVID-19.” As inclusive innovation becomes a more widely used lexicon, and more understood aim, in the Philippines, inclusion can refer to demographic, territorial and industrial participation in innovation, but also, the extent to which innovation is improving, or worsening, livelihoods on account of its environmental impact. In this sense, NEDA’s Philippines action plan for sustainable production and consumption is already well-aligned with our call for a greener understanding of inclusive innovation.
Yemesrach Workie, a Senior Policy Analyst at the UNDP Philippines, similarly made the case for this greener notion of inclusive innovation. In her presentation, she noted that “the social co-benefits of carefully designed green policies can include significant improvements to health outcomes, reductions in the costs of energy, and increases in food security, as well as more, safer, and better paid employment opportunities,” making the case for converging the aims of green and sustainable efforts with that of inclusive innovation.
There are challenges in integrating the environment into our understanding of inclusive innovation in the post-COVID-19 context. As of now, there tends to either be an emphasis on green, sustainability, and climate or on social distribution. We need to continue to causally connect the relationship between green (or blue, when speaking of the oceans) efforts and their distributional consequences. It is not an either-or situation.