I got asked to write about this today and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The effect of Social Innovation on Africa through social/systems innovation, is felt in the heart of social transformation and innovative growth. We firstly need to understand that social innovation is actually a system innovation for change, in the persument of solving a problem. This has a direct effect on the people, as people have an inherent fear for change or the unknown unless they can see their own benefit in the outcome.
The beauty is that we have a window of opportunity in Africa through social systems innovation, to take a closer look at what is not working and redesign systems to work and create solutions for our unique challenges. Social Innovation is the heart of social system transformation. This gives people access to information and knowledge to participate in the creation of new innovations that address social and system challenges.
People who previously had no voice, have the opportunity to participate in the change and transformation processes for the future. People are starting to realize that they have to embrace a new mindset and educate as well as empower themselves in order to change these challenges. Our Youth plays an important part in this process as they are taking the knowledge back into the communities and have the power to influence others to collectively strive for the same innovations.
Entrepreneurship is part of the innovation process to alleviate unemployment and petty crime. Social innovation brought about the innovation to give the opportunity to co-create in order to solve social challenges, to train and develop people so that they can upskill themselves. People have the opportunity to develop themselves and be less reliant on outside sources to sustain themselves.
The impact of Social Innovation in Africa taught people to fish for themselves so that they can feed themselves. The effect of social and system innovation gave people a new purpose and drive to not only better systems and solve problems, but to invent new ideas and technology that are playing an important part in the success and effectiveness of social/system innovation.