UNU-WIDER Innovating for poverty reduction in a time of financial turmoil
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Innovating for poverty reduction in a time of financial turmoil
To reconsider the role of entrepreneurship and technological innovation in development, UNU-WIDER and UNU-MERIT are jointly organizing a workshop to be held in Maastricht, The Netherlands, on 30 and 31st October 2008.
Technological innovations by entrepreneurs were at the core of economic growth that underpinned development in the advanced economies of the world. Many developing countries have, over the past half century, attempted with little or mixed success, to follow suit and stimulate both entrepreneurship and technological innovation. The director of WIDER’s project on entrepreneurship and development, Professor Wim Naudé, notes three reasons to reconsider the role of entrepreneurship and technological innovation in development: persistent poverty, the current financial crisis, and global climate change.
The financial crisis which broke in 2008 will give further impetus to this need, as development finance is likely to be reduced in coming years, requiring innovative and new approaches to reduce poverty through private sector development.
Tackling climate change requires that such private sector development adopts radically new solutions to be sustainable.
The workshop will take a critical look at the relationships between entrepreneurship and innovation; how entrepreneurship and technological innovation can contribute to development; and how the policies of countries, donors and development agencies can facilitate or hinder entrepreneurship and innovation.
Attention will be given to how globalization affects entrepreneurs in developing countries, and whether social entrepreneurship could make a difference to poverty. Moreover, it will ask what is wrong with national systems of innovation in developing countries, and how latecomer countries can speed up industrialization through innovation. Case studies will consider the Indian software industry, Chinese high-tech incubators, and the challenges facing African countries such as Nigeria and South Africa.
The keynote speakers at this workshop are Professor Alice Amsden from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Dr Suma Athreye from Brunel Business School. A total of 19 papers will be presented and discussed.
The programme can be downloaded here.
WIDER MERIT Programme
(186.86 kilobytes)
The press release can be downloaded here.
WIDER MERIT Entrepreneurship press release
(35.79 kilobytes)
According to Naudé “With the world reaching the midterm of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) this year, and with new estimates suggesting that there are now even more people – over 1.4 billion – living in extreme poverty in the world, of whom more than 400 million are in chronic poverty – it is clear that we need to rethink the approaches towards stimulating entrepreneurship and technological innovation in developing countries.”
We need to rethink approaches to stimulating entrepreneurship and technological innovation in developing countries.
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Professor Adam Szirmai, Professorial fellow at UNU-MERIT and co-organizer of the workshop, emphasizes the importance of taking a closer look at the actors that are ultimately responsible for innovation. According to Szirmai “It is the small and large entrepreneurs who create new jobs, new or better products and who can transform their economies. We need to understand how they cope under difficult circumstances and how their creative potential can be unleashed.”
We need to understand how entrepreneurs cope under difficult circumstances and how their creative potential can be unleashed.