What existing socially innovative developments do you notice in the Western Balkans?
The importance of innovations for socio-economic development is recognized and promoted. However, it is still predominantly understood and linked to universities and businesses and often associated only with the technology-related innovative solutions. Some of the basic infrastructure has been developed to support innovative activities across the Western Balkan countries such as technical assistance and grant schemes, innovation funds, tools to measure innovativeness of companies etc. At the regional level of the Western Balkans participating countries have developed the Western Balkan R&D strategy for innovation. Although important steps have been made, innovations do not have a real strategic position in the mainstream policies and are either under-budgeted from the public budgets or financed from external funds. With an exception of Croatia that has devoted one of its major objectives to research and innovation and specific measures for social innovation (SI) under the structural funds. In the rest of the Western Balkans financial instruments to support innovations are coming from unsustainable external finances what hinders chances to benefit from innovations in a long-term. This is mainly due to the lack of public sector reforms and the fact that some basic infrastructure and capacities for good governance, effective and efficient development planning are not yet in place.
In parallel, social innovations in the Western Balkans are emerging outside mainstream policies where the “SI-concept” is still unknown or it’s been reduced to social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is however one of the most developed areas that fall under social innovation at present in the Western Balkans. There has been a variety of policy measures and activities related to the creation of support environment for social entrepreneurs in majority countries of the Western Balkans. Some countries are in the process of developing strategies (e.g. Croatia, Serbia) and also supporting the emergence of social entrepreneurs through initiatives such as start-up incubators and social business/social investment opportunities. Those efforts are more collaborative in its nature as they involve private sector with CSOs and public agencies. Additionally, there are some more innovative efforts in the field of financial support to projects and initiatives, such as the ethics bank in Croatia, Business Angels efforts to support social enterprise start-ups or the Crowd-funding Academy, launched by UNDP Croatia with a goal to create an ongoing platform and support for innovative projects, products and initiatives. And, finally, there are initiatives in the area of life-long learning education, such as the ongoing course on Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship at the private university of VERN’, which has already educated almost 100 students in three years on this topic.
Social needs and challenges remained unsolved by the public policies but communities are getting involved in tackling the most pressing issues and there are many examples where civil society, entrepreneurs and development organisations are using innovative approaches in addressing problems of citizens.
SIL – Social Innovation Laboratory and its network within SI DRIVE project play an important role in mapping of innovative solutions in the Western Balkan region. SIL have mapped over 120 social innovations in the seven countries of the region focusing on the fields of employment, education and poverty reduction. From new services, and products to new methods, forms of partnerships, cooperation and use of resources, social innovators are despite the non-existing infrastructural framework that supports social innovation; social innovators are managing to respond to social and societal needs and demands. Understanding the triggers to innovate as well as barriers to sustain, scale up and transfer SIL will work together with social innovators to initiate forming of a friendly environment and infrastructure for social innovations including information-sharing sharing, capacity building and support mechanisms. Through social innovations, the Western Balkan may find sustainable solutions to address demands and needs of its citizens within its own context, local knowledge and available scarce resources.
Example from Macedonia: Early Childhood Learning Centers – ECLC
Early childhood learning (ECL) is important for development of cognitive, emotional and social skills helping kids age 3-6 to easily adapt later into the school environment. These programs are offered in the kindergartens. However, children age 3-6 from rural areas and from marginalized groups are often excluded from any early childhood learning program. Kindergartens are not available in rural areas and due to limited capacities in urban areas advantage is given to families where both parents are working. This excludes rural children and children from marginalized groups from pre-school education. To address the issue Early Childhood Learning Centres (ECLC) are initiated by UNICEF that piloted the model and mobilized local public and private organisations. Program is developed based on Early Learning Development Standards. ECLC offer few hours program for kids but also provides access to material and instructions for parents on how to work with kids at home. In 2015 there are 22 such centers function in Macedonia with with 2546 childern between 3-6 years old participating and 435 parents of children in 1-3 age group benefiting from better parenting education. Raising the school readiness of these children is also linked to better life outcomes in the future.
Is social innovation formally positioned on policy the level in the Western Balkans?
In terms of policies and measures related to social innovation, Croatia as a new EU Member State has moved the furthest. All three key documents related to EU structural and investment funds, including the Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Croatia and European Commission and two Operative Programmes (OP Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014-2020 and OP Human Resource Development 2014-2020) are conducive to further support and promote social innovation. Currently, OECD as the advisory to the Croatian Ministry of Government is initiated the Social Innovation Competition to support social innovation projects in the area of research and development, competitiveness of SMEs and multi-stakeholder cooperation.
Author: Aleksandra Vladisavljevic, SIL Co-founder
Social Innovation Laboratory-SIL: www.socinnovationlab.org
Social Innovation Lab is a regional hybrid organisation founded in 2011 in Croatia but focused in the field of social innovations in the Western Balkans.