Social Innovation Lab in SL defines future solutions
Finding solutions to key social issues particularly for state run agencies would be in future crafted by the Social Innovation Lab, established by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Funding for this lab would be shared jointly by the two agencies with an initial investment of US$20 million each for this year and in the next few years until 2030 each would infuse $30 million to the programme.
The main focus of the lab would be to find solutions to the 17 Social Development Goals that Sri Lanka is tasked with achieving, Science and Technology Minister Susil Premajayantha said at a media briefing held at the UN office in Colombo on Monday.
He noted that key issues like the Chronic Kidney Disease, waste management and food security would be discussed at the lab to arrive at recommendations to the government on how to overcome the problems.
The lab works on each task within 28 days and will process the issue and prototype and test the solution by analysing, testing, receiving feedback and incorporating feedback and re-testing it.
A resource pool of partners from across all sectors would be brought in as and when required depending on the alignment of their expertise and the issue at hand.
The lab will be piloted during a period of three years before scaling up and will be one of the first in the South Asian region that is aimed at bringing Sri Lanka forward as it takes on development challenges, UNDP Country Director Jorn Sorensen said at the media briefing.
He noted that they would be working with government ministries and the private sector as well as the civil society.
Mr. Sorensen pointed out that while there would not be any readymade solutions to the issues at hand, experts would be engaged in finding firm recommendations for possible solutions.
The services of this lab would be provided free of charge and is aimed at addressing the needs of the Sri Lankan people.
Asked why UNDP had selected Sri Lanka as a first in the region, Mr. Sorensen explained that they wanted to bring down something worthwhile to Sri Lanka and believed this programme would be ideal and noted that it had “sparked a great interest among many government partners” during a presentation made earlier this year as well.
Denmark, which was the first country in the world to commence this type of lab had been able to reduce time in policy implementation from months to weeks.
The lab in Sri Lanka that would commence in about three months’ time would be located at the ITI premises under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Research.