The Obama administration is serious about encouraging entrepreneurship as a way to boost global development. This year, it launched initiatives to promote entrepreneurship among women and Muslim populations in the developing world.
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This drive for more entrepreneurship has prompted fresh ideas through which the U.S. government awards grants. According to officials, new mechanisms such as innovation funds are in place in federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, to make it easier for development entrepreneurs to seek funding.
“The disgusting nature of procurement and the challenge that we find is that you have to be so knowledgeable about exactly how to write these grants,” U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said. “That is so limiting to the number of people who can participate. I’m hoping to knock open the door to make lots of folks in the position to participate.”
The administration, Chopra suggested, wants to reform the grant-making process so that “you don’t have to have a Ph.D. in physics to figure how do you fill out the form and get your idea into the hands of someone who can evaluate it.”
Chopra said development entrepreneurs should not only look at grants and awards now offered by USAID, but “they should encourage donor agencies to think of new initiatives and proactively suggest things that would make for great challenges.”
At USAID, increased innovation is being supported by the new Office of Science and Technology and a “very much upgraded public/private partnership office,” said Adam Slote, senior health advisor at USAID.
“There is very much a desire to look to the private sector to help us solve some issues through a partnership model,” he added.
The agency has also started the Development Innovations Ventures, which aims to create new scalable solutions to key development challenges. Slote said the new vehicles will help foster the government’s role as a facilitator of private sector solutions.
>> USAID Highlights Innovation in New Investment Facility
As reported by Devex, the administration has made innovation a central theme in its new global development policy and Millennium Development Goals action plan.
>> US Rolls Out Final MDG Strategy
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“We should really be addressing the market failures, or the positive spin on that is creating the enabling environment so that the private sector can do what it does best—innovate, make some profit and thereby achieve scale and sustainability,” Slote said.
While trying to increase opportunity, the agency also will move to spend money wisely, he added. Toward that end, USAID will be “smarter” about which partnerships will be the most productive in meeting goals laid out in the Global Health Initiative, Feed the Future and other programs. The agency, he said, will “think strategically about which private sector partners can help us achieve those goals and engage them” rather than “continuing with groups with less impact.”
