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Press Release 2 | Southern Innovator

Press Release for General Distribution

Fourth Issue of UNDP Magazine Southern Innovator Launches at Expo

United Nations, Nairobi, Kenya, 31 October 2013

  • Fourth issue of Southern Innovator launched at Global South-South Development Expo 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya
  • 60-page color magazine gives snapshot of fast-changing world

The fourth issue of Southern Innovator magazine has launched at the Global South-South Development Expo 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya. Southern Innovator Issue 4 visits the new cities being built to tackle the challenges of a rapidly urbanizing 21st-century world. The magazine also highlights some of the solutions being devised to the challenges people face as the world becomes a majority urban place.

Some innovators are building new cities from scratch, applying the latest thinking and hard-wiring in cutting-edge information technologies and innovative environmental measures to create ‘smart’ cities and eco-cities. Architects are designing and refining homes that are beautiful and functional, easy to build, affordable and conserve energy. Social entrepreneurs are innovating ways to create liveable and socially inclusive urban areas, often in places where planning has been scant and where incomes are very low. All those featured in the magazine were chosen for their focus on improving human development and their ingenuity and fresh thinking.

Southern Innovator champions a 21st-century global innovator culture. The magazine profiles and celebrates the innovators across the global South finding new ways to tackle poverty, create wealth and improve human development and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In its first issue in September 2011, Southern Innovator featured the people who are re-shaping new information technologies – from mobile phone apps to Internet technologies. Many of the innovators profiled in that first issue came from Kenya.

SI (southerninnovator.org) is based on intensive research and produced by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation in UNDP (UNOSSC) (formerly the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation in UNDP). UNOSSC organizes an annual Global South-South Development Expo (southsouthexpo.org), a roaming celebration and gathering of Southern innovators previously held in New York, Washington, D.C., Geneva, Rome and Vienna. This year’s Expo is being held in Nairobi, Kenya (28 October to 1 November 2013) and is hosted by the UN Environment Programme (unep.org).

SI is being distributed through the United Nations’ network and partners and reaches some of the world’s poorest and remotest places, as well as the vibrant but stressed growing global megacities. It is hoped the magazine will inspire budding innovators with its mix of stories, essential information, facts and figures, images and graphics.

We hope you enjoy the magazine and find its content interesting and illuminating: a snapshot of a fast-changing world awash, as we found out, with
innovators, creators and do-ers making their world a better place. It is possible to sponsor issues of the magazine, either through helping to fund its print run, or through sponsored inserts covering that issue’s theme with relevant content for our readers.

For more information on Southern Innovator, contact Cosmas Gitta at
cosmas.gitta@undp.org.

Press Release 1

Press Release 3

Online archives: southerninnovator.orghttp://www.scribd.com/SouthernInnovator. Follow @SouthSouth1

United Nations General Assembly: Sixty-ninth session, Item 24 (b) of the provisional agenda, Operational activities for development: South-South cooperation for development, 17 July 2014.
The research informing Southern Innovator Magazine played a part in the formulation of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2022

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2012: Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

By David SouthDevelopment Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

ISSN 2227-3905

The  third issue of Southern Innovator  magazine  has launched. Order advance copies now for distribution. Email: southerninnovator@yahoo.co.uk.

The second issue of Southern Innovator magazine has launched: Read and download the magazine here: Southern Innovator Issue 2.

December

New Cities Offering Solutions for Growing Urban Populations Development Challenges: Across the global South, new cities are being dreamed up by architects, city planners and governments, or are already under construction. Two new urban areas being built offer lessons for others in the global South. They both deploy intelligent solutions to the combined demands of urbanization, growing populations and rising expectations.

Creating Green Fashion in China Development Challenges: China is the world’s largest manufacturer (Euromonitor) and the largest clothing maker, producing a quarter of all textiles and clothing. It is a global fashion production hub, and many major global clothing brands have their products made there – whether they admit it or not.

Biogas Digester-in-a-Bag Brings Portability Development Challenges: Securing energy sources that are cheap (or free) and renewable can significantly reduce the cost of living for the world’s poor. The cost of fuel for essentials such as cooking and lighting can quickly eat up household incomes.

Powerful Solar Light Spurring Income-Making Opportunities Development Challenges:  A clever innovator from India has built a highly durable solar lantern that also doubles as a mobile phone charger.

Global South Urbanization Does Not Have to Harm Biodiversity Development Challenges: How to balance fragile ecosystems with rapid urbanization will be the challenge for planners and governments across the global South in the coming years. The urbanization trend is clear: the world’s total urban area is expected to triple between 2000 and 2030, with urban populations set to double to around 4.9 billion in the same period (UNEP). This urban expansion will draw heavily on water and other natural resources and will consume prime agricultural land.

November

All-in-One Solar Kiosk Business Solution for Africa Development Challenges: Kiosks are ubiquitous throughout commercial areas in the global South. These highly efficient little business outlets enable small-scale entrepreneurs to sell necessary products without the expense of renting and running a shop.

Ugandan Fish Sausages Transform Female Fortunes Development Challenges: What to do when your food production enterprise is just not making much money? It is a common problem in the global South, where farmers and fishers often struggle to survive and can face the threat of bankruptcy and destitution when trying to provide essential food for their communities.

Woman Restaurant Entrepreneur Embraces Brand-Driven Growth Development Challenges:  The journey of Zhang Lan is the tale of an entrepreneur who exemplifies the story of globalization. She has gone from working many part-time jobs while studying overseas, to becoming one of China’s most successful food entrepreneurs.

Better by Design in China Development Challenges: In recent decades, China has been known more for its inexpensive manufactured goods than as a producer of high quality products. But this is changing as the country seeks to move up the economic chain.

Energy-Efficient Wooden Houses are also Earthquake Safe Development Challenges: In Argentina, an innovative housing project has married good design with energy efficiency, earthquake resilience and the use of local materials and labour. As energy resources continue to be stretched around the global South, innovative building designs will be critical to the creation of sustainable housing for the future.

October

Chinese Building Solution for Rapidly Urbanizing Global South Development Challenges: The global South is currently experiencing the biggest surge in urban population ever seen in human history. This transformation from urban to rural is happening in many different ways across the global South. Some countries have highly detailed plans and are building new cities from scratch, while other countries feel overwhelmed by their booming urban populations.

Diaspora Bonds to Help Build up Infrastructure Development Challenges: Many people are aware of the significant role played in global development by remittance payments from migrant workers working in the wealthy North to the global South. But they may not be aware of the significant sums migrant workers have saved in bank accounts in these wealthy countries. Across the global South, efforts are underway to lure these sums back to home countries to boost development efforts.

African Supercomputers to Power Next Phase of Development Development Challenges: Information technology developments in Africa have long lagged behind those in other parts of the world. But the transformation being brought about by the widespread adoption and use of mobile phones – each one a mini-computer – and the expansion of undersea fibre optic cable connections to Africa are creating the conditions for an exciting new phase of computing growth on the continent.

Africa to Get Own Internet Domain Development Challenges:  Africa is in the midst of an Internet revolution that is set only to accelerate. The continent is one of the last places to experience the information technology revolution that has swept the world in the past two decades.

Geothermal Energy to Boost Global South’s Development Development Challenges: The geothermal heat produced by the earth’s molten core is a resource receiving more and more attention across the global South.

September

Free Magazine Boosts Income for Rickshaw Drivers Development Challenges: In the bustling, congested cities of Asia, rickshaws and auto-rickshaws are common forms of transport. Smaller, cheaper and more nimble than cars, they play a key role in the transit infrastructure, helping to get people to work and to get around.

Design Collaborations Revitalize Traditional Craft Techniques Development Challenges: Keeping alive traditional craft techniques and methods in the age of globalization is a tricky balance to get right. As countries seek to increase living standards and income, traditional craft-making methods are often jettisoned in favour of attracting manufacturing and other high-value activities – meaning rich and potentially lucrative skills can be lost.

Profile of African Innovators Continues to Rise Development Challenges: A mix of developments is proving that African innovators no longer need to see themselves as lone operators working in isolation.

The Water-Free South African Bathing Solution Development Challenges: As the world’s population grows from its current 7 billion to a projected 9 billion in 2050 (UN), competition for access to the Earth’s resources will become fiercer. The most essential resource for life on the planet – and an increasingly precious resource – is water. Water is necessary for the very survival of humans, animals and plants, and is also used in vast quantities by industries and farms.

August

Mobile Phone Shopping to Create Efficient Markets across Borders Development Challenges: An anticipated game-changing revolution in African trading set for 2013 is getting one innovative business very excited.

Egyptian Youth Turns Plastic Waste into Fuel Development Challenges: The challenge of finding alternate fuel sources is capturing the imagination of innovators across the global South. As the world’s population increases – it recently reached 7 billion (UN) – and the number of people seeking a better life grows in turn, the energy demands on the planet are pushing up competition for existing conventional fuel sources.

Shopping and Flying in Africa’s Boom Towns Development Challenges: As economies across Africa grow, the continent still has a long way to go to create infrastructure to match people’s rising expectations of what a modern, prosperous life looks like.

Teenager Uses Technology to Protect Livestock from Lions Development Challenges: In Kenya, a teenage Maasai(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people) inventor has developed a way to chase lions away from livestock that doesn’t harm the lions. It is a common practice to kill lions when they threaten or kill livestock, and this has led to a precipitous drop in the local lion population at Nairobi National Park(http://www.kws.org/parks/parks_reserves/NANP.html/), near the country’s capital, Nairobi. Lions are a significant tourist attraction for Kenya and the population decline is a threat to the future of the tourist industry.

July

African Innovation Eco-system Taking Shape Development Challenges: How to increase the rate of innovation in Africa? And specifically, innovation that actually improves people’s lives and reduces poverty. It is a hard  question to answer, but some are putting in place the building blocks of a 21st century innovation culture by riding the information technology revolution as it rolls across Africa.

African Fuel Pioneer Uses Crisis to Innovate Development Challenges: Crisis, as the old saying goes, is also a window of opportunity. And there is one African entrepreneur who knows this better than most. Daniel Mugenga has been on a journey of innovation that has led him to become a pioneer in the emerging new field of algae technologies. The story of how he got there is a testament to the power of using business to both solve problems and make profits.

Indian Entrepreneur Brings Dignity to Poor Women Development Challenges: Driven by the revelation that his wife was torn between spending money on milk for the children and buying commercially manufactured sanitary napkins, Indian innovator and inventor Arunachalam Muruganantham embarked on a long and intensive journey to find a solution. His achievement – a simple machine – is bringing dignity to poor women and providing them with a much-needed income source.

Turning Human Waste to Fertilizer: An African Solution Development Challenges: While South Africa has been free of the racist Apartheid regime since the mid-1990s, the expected boost to living standards for the majority black population has not been as widespread and as quick as many had expected.

East Africa to get its First Dedicated Technology City Development Challenges: An ambitious scheme is underway to create a vast technology city on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya.

June

Indonesian Wooden Radio Succeeds with Good Design Development Challenges: One Indonesian industrial designer has pioneered an innovative business that has rejuvenated the economy of a farming village and improved the sustainability of local forests – and he’s doing it all with wood.

Gobi Desert Wine to Tackle Poverty and Boost Incomes Development Challenges: In the arid Gobi desert spanning the two Asian nations of China and Mongolia is a bold attempt to make wine and reduce poverty. The environment is harsh, with temperatures swinging from sub-zero winter cold to sweltering summer heat. The desert is also home to high winds and notorious dust storms that plague China’s capital Beijing every year.

Mauritanian Music Shop Shares Songs and Friendship Development Challenges: Around the world, traditional music stores selling vinyl records, tapes and CDs (compact discs) are closing down. Digital downloads distributed over the Internet and mobile phones make it unnecessary to build a music collection in these hard formats.

Global South Eco-cities Show How the Future Can Be Development Challenges: The world is currently undergoing a high-stress transition on a scale not seen since the great industrial revolution that swept Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today’s urban and industrial transition involves many more people and is taking place on a greater proportion of the planet. With rapid urbanization comes a demand for middle class lifestyles, with their high-energy usage and high consumption of raw materials.

New Journal Celebrates Vibrancy of Modern Africa Development Challenges: Africa has seen huge changes to its communications and media in the past five years. The rise and rise of mobile phones, the expansion of the Internet and the explosion in African blogging and social media, on top of flourishing print and broadcast media, all bring an increasing range of options for telling African stories and increasing dialogue.

May

An Innovator’s ‘Big Chicken Agenda’ for Africa Development Challenges: Increasing the quantity and quality of food in Africa will be critical to improving the continent’s human development. And a key element in giving Africa a more secure food supply will be boosting science and knowledge on the continent and making sure it is focused on Africa’s needs and situation.

New Swimwear for Plus-size Women in Brazil Development Challenges: Brazil is well known for its stylish swimwear, with styles usually targeted at young women and those with more conventional, media-friendly body shapes. But now a company is making visiting the beach more comfortable and empowering for plus-size women.

Havana’s Restaurant Boom Augers in New Age of Entrepreneurs Development Challenges: Cuba, the Caribbean island nation known for its 1959 revolution and its tourism industry, is undergoing a shift in its economic strategy. The country has had heavy state control of its industries and business activities since the country adopted the official policy of state socialism and joined the Communist economic sphere headed by the Soviet Union.

Global South’s Rising Megacities Challenge Idea of Urban Living Development Challenges: The world crossed the threshold from being a majority rural world to a majority urban one at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The reason for this is the fast-growing urban areas of the global South. And this is having a profound affect on how the world’s people live.

Frugal Innovation Trend Meets Global South’s Innovation Culture Development Challenges: There is a trend occurring across the global South that some are calling the next great wave of innovation. It has different names but many are dubbing it ‘frugal innovation’. Frugal innovation is basically innovation done with limited resources and investment. In short, innovation on the cheap but packing a big punch.

April

Battery Business Brings Tanzanians Cheap Electricity Development Challenges: Access to electricity is critical for making substantial development gains. With steady supplies of electricity, it is possible to read and study at night, to run modern appliances, to better use the latest information technologies and to work using time- and labour-saving devices. A home with electricity literally
switches the light on modern life and gives a family huge advantages compared to those without electricity.

Global South’s Rising Economies Gain Investor Spotlight Development Challenges: A new book is arguing that the world’s attention should switch away from BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and take another look at nations and regions elsewhere across the global South. It argues many are lodestones of future growth and prosperity in the making and will see dramatic changes over the next decade.

Hip-driven Pump Brings Water to Parched Fields Development Challenges: Finding ways to increase agricultural productivity is key to expanding food supplies and making farming pay. With the world’s population continuing to rise and becoming more urban, there is a pressing need to improve both the quantity and quality of food supplies.

Cooking Bag Helps Poor Households Save Time, Money Development Challenges: For millions of poor people around the world, life is lived on the economic margins and household and personal budgets are tight. There were 1.29 billion people in the world living on less than US $1.25 a day as of 2008 (World Bank), and 1.18 billion living on US $1.25 to US $2 per day. There was only a modest drop in the number of people living below US $2 per day – the average poverty line for developing countries – between 1981 and 2008, from 2.59 to 2.47 billion.

Help is at Hand for India’s Beleaguered Bus-riders Development Challenges: The website is a simple affair: a distinctive logo sits above a lean-looking booking system that allows users to enter their journey start and end destination, date and then click for available buses and prices. Its simplicity is deceptive: redBus is a smart technological solution to a very complicated problem in India: booking and buying a bus ticket. The service it offers – relief from a chaotic, frustrating and time-consuming task – is transforming the experience of travel in India.

March

China Looking to Lead on Robot Innovation Development Challenges: Since the 1950s, science fiction has been telling the world we will soon be living with robots. While robots have emerged, they have been mostly kept to heavy industry, where machines can perform dangerous, hot and unpleasant repetitive tasks to a high standard.

New Cuban Film Seeks to Revive Sector Development Challenges: Since Cuba’s 1959 revolution, the country’s film sector has largely survived on the largesse of the state. The switch to Communism as the guiding economic model of the country after the revolution led, at first, to generous support to filmmakers. The government ranked cinema ahead of television seeing both cinema and television as the two most important forms of artistic expression in the country. But as state funding has dwindled in recent years, adventurous independent filmmakers have tried to keep the Cuban film tradition going using other sources.

India’s Modernizing Food Economy Unleashing New Opportunities Development Challenges: Increasing prosperity in India is reshaping the country’s relationship to its food. A number of trends are coming together that point to significant improvements to India’s long-running problems with food supply and distribution. This matters because India, despite its two-decade economic boom – and increasing middle-class population – is still home to about 25 per cent of the world’s hungry poor, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Kenya Turns to Geothermal Energy for Electricity and Growth Development Challenges: In an effort to diversify its power supply and meet growing electricity demand, Kenya is looking to increase its use of geothermal energy sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_electricity). Tapping the abundant heat and steam that lurks underground to drive electric power plants offers a sustainable and long-term source of low-cost energy.

February

African Afro Beats Leads New Music Wave to Europe Development Challenges: A surge in interest in African music in Britain is creating new economic opportunities for the continent’s musicians. The new sound heating up the U.K. music scene is “Afro Beats” – a high energy hybrid that mixes Western rap influences with Ghanaian and Nigerian popular music.

Venture Capital Surge in Africa to Help Businesses Development Challenges: Africa’s potential economic powerhouse lies in its small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Africa ebbs and flows based on the state of the global economy – and most of it is directed towards large enterprises and multinational companies.

Business Leads on Tackling Violence in Mexican City Development Challenges: The damaging affects of crime and violence can ruin a city. They act as a drag on efforts to increase wealth and improve living conditions, and a city that gets a bad reputation, especially in the age of the Internet, will lose investment opportunities.

Africa’s Tourism Sector Can Learn from Asian Experience Development Challenges: Africa continues to be seen as new territory for global tourism, yet it still is not even close to meeting its potential, according to a report by a South African think tank. In fact, many resorts and tourist areas are failing to fill up with visitors. This contrasts with the booming world tourism industry, which broke records in arrivals in 2011 (UNWTO).

Designed in China to Rival ‘Made in China’ Development Challenges: Harnessing the power of design to improve products and the way they are manufactured is a critical component of successful economic development. And the high export value of designing and making “computer equipment, office equipment, telecommunication equipment, electric circuit equipment, and valves and transistors” was flagged up as a priority for developing nations back in 2005 at a meeting looking for “New and Dynamic Sectors of World Trade” (UNCTAD).

January

Microwork Pioneer Transforms Prospects for Poor, Vulnerable Development Challenges: A pioneering technology social enterprise has found a way to connect people around the world to the new digital economy, transforming their lives and providing long-term employment opportunities. It is closing the digital divide in a very practical way, teaching new skills and, most importantly, providing income to the poor and vulnerable.

African Farming Wisdom Now Scientifically Proven Development Challenges: Increasing the agricultural productivity of Africa is critical for the continent’s future development, and the world’s. Two-thirds of Africans derive their main income from agriculture, but the continent has the largest quantity of unproductive – or unused – potential agricultural land in the world.

Vietnam Launches Low-cost, High-Quality Video Game Development Challenges: The creative economy offers huge opportunities to the countries of the global South. With the proliferation of new technologies – mobile phones, digital devices, personal computers with cheap or free software, the Internet – the tools to hand for creative people are immense. This begins to level the playing field and allows hardworking and talented people in poor countries to start to compete directly with those in wealthy countries.

Lagos Traffic Crunch Gets a New Solution Development Challenges: Around the world, traffic congestion is often accepted as the price paid for rapid development and a dynamic economy. But as anyone who lives in a large city knows, there comes a tipping point where the congestion begins to harm economic activity by wasting people’s time in lengthy and aggravating commuting, and leaving commuters frazzled and burned out by the whole experience.

New Kenyan Services to Innovate Mobile Health and Farming  Development Challenges: Kenya is home to a vibrant innovation culture centred around mobile phones. While not all the services launched will be successful, the flurry of start-ups shows the country has the right combination of technical skills, bright ideas and cash to make a go of new services.

Back Issues

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletter | 2011-2014

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletter | 2007-2010

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

South-South cooperation for development, SSC/17/3, High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation, 12 April 2012.


Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2022

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Southern Innovator And The GSSD Expo | 2011 – 2014

Beginning in 2011 and ending in 2014, each issue of Southern Innovator was launched at the annual Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) run by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC). The issues (there were five) would connect with that year’s Expo theme and were intended to reinforce the solutions presented at the Expo, as well as those solutions discovered through research for the influential United Nations e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions. An Expo was not run in 2015 for the following reason: U.S. Finds Macau Billionaire Guilty in U.N. Bribery Case

Studies have shown the importance of reading to real change. Not just online, but in paper form. The retention of information and knowledge is greater when a person reads something in a book or a magazine. Another factor is quality design (which makes the published material both attractive and effective). Trashy, gaudy or slap-dash design, while it has its place and context, is not suitable for well-funded, transparent, public organizations seeking to communicate across borders in a professional manner. Southern Innovator was designed following the UN and UNDP design guidelines at the time, while also adhering to the UN Global Compact and the UN Consultants Remuneration Guidelines. The content was also written to follow those guidelines as well as the Plain English Campaign, which seeks to reduce the presence of “gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information”. On top of this, the magazine benefited from experience: the experience of one of Iceland’s top graphic designers and illustrators, the team based at the UNOSSC in New York who oversaw the editing and proof reading, and the researcher, editor and writer who has led many successful and award-winning publishing ventures, including during “one of the biggest peacetime economic collapses ever”.   

“What a tremendous magazine your team has produced! It’s a terrific tour de force of what is interesting, cutting edge and relevant in the global mobile/ICT space… This is great, engaging, relevant and topical stuff.” Rose Shuman, Founder & CEO, Open Mind and Question Box, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.

Southern Innovator Issue 1: Mobile Phones and Information Technology was published in 2011 and launched at the Expo in Rome, Italy.

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/about/press-releases/

Southern Innovator Issue 2: Youth and Entrepreneurship was published in 2012 and launched at the Expo in Vienna, Austria.
Southern Innovator Issue 3: Agribusiness and Food Security was published in 2012 and launched at the Expo in Vienna, Austria.
Southern Innovator Issue 4: Cities and Urbanization was published in 2013 and launched at the Expo in Nairobi, Kenya (the first time in Africa).

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/about/press-release-2/

Issue 6 of Southern Innovator was to be on the theme of science, technology and innovation.
Southern Innovator Issue 5: Waste and Recycling was published in 2014 and launched at the Expo in Washington, D.C.

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/about/press-release-3/

“Beautiful, inspiring magazine from UNDP on South-South innovation. Heart is pumping adrenaline and admiration just reading it.”

Southern Innovator Editor and Writer David South.

Disrupted! Whatever happened to Southern Innovator Issue 6?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2017

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Southern Innovator As A Knowledge And Learning Tool | November 2017

Why even bother printing (on paper) Southern Innovator as a magazine? “What about the trees and we live in the digital age!”, some might say.

There is evidence and science supporting the need to always publish Southern Innovator in print as well as online. First, a study of the World Bank’s online publications came to a shocking conclusion: A survey in 2014 found a third of World Bank publications are never downloaded, 40 per cent were downloaded just 100 times, and only 13 per cent were downloaded more than 250 times in their lifetime (The Washington Post). As The Washington Post pointed out, these are publicly funded publications with the intention of contributing to policy debates and providing solutions to the world’s problems. So, if nobody is reading them, or just a handful are, that actually does matter if you care about positive change in the world.

Secondly, a Norwegian study in 2014 from the Stavanger University (part of Europe-wide research into the impact of digitisation on the reading experience), found “… that paper readers did report higher on measures having to do with empathy and transportation and immersion, and narrative coherence, than iPad readers,” according to lead researcher Anne Mangen (The Guardian).

An earlier study the researchers did also found “students who read texts in print scored significantly better on the reading comprehension test than students who read the texts digitally” and that “Studies with students, for instance, have shown that they often prefer to read on paper”, continued Mangen in The Guardian.   

Another issue is Internet shutdowns, outages and censorship. All of these have been on the increase, especially in Africa (africanews.com). To put it simply, you cannot electronically shutdown a piece of paper. 

Design to show and teach.
Innovations Summary.
Innovations Summary.
A fast-changing world.
Knowledge Summary.
Knowledge Summary.
Being a Southern Innovator: An Urban Guide.
Turning Waste into Wealth: A Southern Innovator’s Guide.
Managing the workflow: Getting things done.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2017