The context for a new design-driven innovation ecosystem

Today, the global development landscape is facing unprecedented change. Climate change, conflict, urbanisation, automation, artificial intelligence, and environmental degradation are all having a massive impact on the complexity of the challenges communities face.

This is the context in which AKF’s over 4,000 staff are currently working, and whilst inclusivity and co-creation of solutions has always been a central tenet of AKF’s approach, this raft of new challenges has highlighted the need for new and creative approaches that deliver greater value and impact – at scale.

This rationale has underpinned the development of Accelerate Impact. Through this new initiative, AKF not only formalises its inclusive approach, but also applies design-driven innovation to its programmes, ensuring creative collaboration across the organisation, the ability to scale local solutions where applicable, and deliver even greater impact to the communities it serves.

“We need local solutions that can scale to answer global questions.”

Munir Ahmad
Global Lead for Innovation, AKF

Led by AKF’s Global Lead for Innovation, Munir Ahmad, Accelerate Impact was launched with a mission to equip AKF staff, partners and communities with the competencies, mindsets and resources to create impactful next-generation solutions, systems and strategies. By giving everyone the power to put their creative ideas into action and working with communities to co-create solutions that are relevant to them, AKF hopes to to create a vibrant collaborative innovation ecosystem across the entire organisation that will nurture creative problem-solvers. In this way, AKF aims to significantly increase the measurable value, impact and scale of its interventions.

Human-Centred Design – a strategy for innovation

Mature organisations are designed for control and predictability. Yet innovation requires embracing ambiguity and tolerating risks. Moreover, social impact is a complex domain that requires collaboration between diverse stakeholders.

Design methodologies, such as Human-Centred Design (HCD), offer a structured process that can help to reduce this discomfort, ease navigating such complexity, and create the necessary creative confidence so that better and more impactful solutions can emerge from bringing local stakeholders and communities together to be part of the solution.

In recent years, leading players in the field of design – IDEO, Stanford d.school, MIT, and others – have introduced a number of new design tools and methods that are increasingly being applied in the field of development. They have demonstrated that it is absolutely critical for organisations to have a deliberate, clear and structured innovation process to ensure that innovation ‘happens’ effectively and systematically.

HCD is one such framework that can drive collaboration that cuts across organisational and sectoral boundaries as well as ensure a systematic approach to innovation. This ‘human’ approach to problem solving incorporates insights about human needs and behaviour into project design and delivery, thus increasing impact through empathy. It is both a mindset and a framework for creative problem-solving.

AKF has always empowered communities to participate in the design of solutions to their own problems. Now, informed by these global methodologies, as well as surveys and research conducted with staff, Accelerate Impact aims to offer a new strategy to incorporate design methodologies and innovative problem-solving approaches – such as HCD – to enable internal teams, local partners and communities to design more impactful programmes. This includes setting up internal programmes and systems, and external partnerships to address not only the needs and concerns of AKF staff but also to accelerate AKF’s leadership in social innovation.

How does Accelerate Impact work?

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  DESIGN

  Strengthening collaboration between diverse stakeholders, and spurring new ways of solving problems using design as a strategy for stimulating the development, experimentation and testing of innovative solutions and programmes.

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  CAPACITY

  Equipping teams with skills on how to design innovative programmes using approaches like Human-Centred Design and co-creation. Empowering staff from all organisational levels to become more innovative, creative, adaptive and entrepreneurial.

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  ECOSYSTEM

  Fostering an enabling ecosystem where innovation is open and accessible to everyone. Providing opportunities for talented, creative people across the organisation to have the necessary resources to take smart risks and apply their knowledge to test new ideas.

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  PARTNERSHIPS

  Building partnerships with the private sector, foundations, and non-traditional actors to bring and leverage new ideas, expertise, technology and funding.

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  LEARNING

  Promoting a culture of continuous learning through cultivating user insights to better implement, share, and expand on knowledge.

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  EVIDENCE AND SCALE

  Using evidence to identify the most promising solutions and provide additional support to innovations that prove their impact, cost-effectiveness, and potential to scale.

Currently Accelerate Impact is being embedded into AKF systems at an organisational level through:

• Identifying and nurturing ‘Innovation Champions’, who are rigorously trained in HCD methodology, to strengthen programme design and promote innovation in-country;
• HCD workshops, bootcamps and learning experiences for staff and partners;
• Blended Learning Courses to share resources with development practitioners and other stakeholders;
• Innovation toolkits to support implementing the HCD process during programme development;
• Communities of practice to strengthen relationships and encourage peer-learning;
• Strategic funding to support programme innovation;
• Community-driven innovation through flagship programmes such as Local Impact and Schools2030.

Spotlights – Accelerate Impact in current AKF programmes

Schools2030

Schools2030 is a new globally informed, locally rooted 10-year research and learning improvement programme working with 1000 schools across 10 countries, with the aim of finding ‘what works’ to improve holistic quality learning for all. In order to empower schools to be at the heart of their own solutions, Schools2030 – with support from Accelerate Impact – will roll out a Human-Centred Design toolkit that will enable preschool, primary school and secondary school stakeholders to co-identify their challenges, develop new solutions, apply for funding, and implement classroom-level strategies.

Local Impact

Poverty and conflict are multidimensional. Having a long-term impact requires a multi-sector approach and community ownership in both defining the problems they face and creating the solutions. Local Impact was created as a joint initiative of the Aga Khan Foundation and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The innovative framework puts local communities at the center of development for meaningful, sustained impact. Local Impact is currently working in Central Asia with a focus on Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.

There is, of course, much work to be done to truly embed a culture that nurtures social innovation into a large and mature organisation like AKF, but progress is underway. As part of its remit, Accelerate Impact will monitor and evaluate its progress both organisationally and through the impact of its programmes. We look forward to updating you in the near future.

To find out more and keep up to date with the work of Accelerate Impact, please follow its page on Medium.