The evaluation of innovation for inclusive development projects

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Innovation for inclusive development aims to not only produce products and services for base of the pyramid(BoP) markets, but also to improve innovative capacity and empower those in marginalised communities.Although a wide range of actors aim to support innovation for inclusive development, they lack proper methodsto assess the impact that these projects have. This study sets out to develop a framework and tool to guide theevaluation of University-driven Technology-based Innovation for Inclusive Development (UTIID) projects inorder to evaluate performance, identify weaknesses and classify project outcomes.A systematic literature review is conducted to identify an evaluation approach from the extant literature thatmay best be able to evaluate UTIID projects. Based on the review, a process-level, innovation system (IS)approach, namely the component-function approach is identified as the most appropriate approach for theevaluation of UTIID projects. This approach is focused on the components within a system and the changesthat occur through the interaction of the components in the system functions.An empirical study is conducted on 16 UTIID projects from four different universities in the Western Caperegion of South Africa. These case studies are used for several purposes (1) to investigate the current state ofmonitoring and evaluation in UTIID projects; (2) to map the inputs, outputs and outcomes of these projects inorder to construct a typology; and (3) to validate the use of the component-function approach as an UTIIDproject evaluation approach.The empirical findings reveal that there are no incentives for UTIID projects to perform outcome evaluations. Several inputs, outputs and outcomes were identified for the studied UTIID projects and these were synthesisedinto a typology. The application of the component-function analytical framework to the 16 UTIID projectsindicated that the component-function analytical framework was an effective method to evaluate the systemperformance, identify system weaknesses and to propose tools to address the systemic weaknesses withinUTIID projects.Lastly, the developed typologies and component-function analytical framework are used to assemble an UTIIDproject evaluation tool that enables the evaluation of UTIID projects at a systems level and classify projectoutcomes.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University