Southern Innovator and the Growing Global Innovation Culture | 14 April 2016

A paper prepared for the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) in 2013. The paper marked a key milestone in both China’s innovation achievements and that of the global South as it embraced the mobile and information technology revolution.

In 2013, the global Human Development Report took on the theme “The Rise of the South”: a theme first mooted as a potential cover story for Southern Innovator’s launch issue while in development in 2010 (http://www.davidsouthconsulting.com/blog/2015/7/27/you-heard-it-here-first-influencing-perspectives-on-the-glob.html).

In 2013 the Cities and Urbanization issue of Southern Innovator was launched at the Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) in Nairobi, Kenya.

In September 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34372188), China’s President Xi Jinping announced China would spend US $2 billion on South-South cooperation initiatives. This has been called “a ‘game changer’ in international relations” (http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/11/opinion-chinas-new-south-south-funds-a-global-game-changer/). President Xi also said of South-South cooperation, it is: “a great pioneering measure uniting the developing nations together for self-improvement, is featured by equality, mutual trust, mutual benefit, win-win result, solidarity and mutual assistance and can help developing nations pave a new path for development and prosperity.”

Also that year the United Nations launched its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), utilising innovation and South-South Cooperation as the tools to accelerate development goals.

Southern Innovator was cited in UN strategic plans and the magazine’s influence can be seen across the UN as it works to achieve the SDGs. In a sense, Southern Innovator‘s design vision and data-driven and mobile-driven innovators were folded into the bigger policy agendas and funding priorities of the SDGs today.