Aligning grassroots innovations with public sector demand and its scaling pathways requires capacity-building on both sides: Part 3 of 3 takeaways from the World Health Innovation Forum on why grassroots innovations are key to addressing NCDs

Grassroots innovators and policymakers need to work together to ensure scale of novel solutions to persistent problems. Unfortunately, these actors often speak different “languages.” While innovators understand the health needs in their communities and can bring highly practical, applied knowledge to the problem, they can lack the know-how and capacity to expand their work beyond its original context. Meanwhile, governments need to be supported and incentivized to identify, engage with and scale health innovations in their countries.

The path to scaling grassroots innovations on NCDs hence requires capacity-building on both sides and from the very beginning. The needs highlighted by innovators must be reflected in government priority- and demand-setting exercises. Common spaces and platforms can help identify and assess innovations that are fit-for-purpose and scalable. A practical scaling pathway must be articulated with roles for innovators and policymakers alike, including strategies for sustainable financing, monitoring and impact evaluation, with the goal of institutionalizing innovative practices in national NCD programmes.

The “Mountain Model” provides a guide to common challenges and insights to government engagement of health innovations. To further enhance and contextualize this guide to the realities of scaling grassroots innovations on NCDs, the NCD Lab will launch a series of activities over the next few years, including workshops, case studies and expert dialogues to build knowledge on what a scaling pathway can look like for a grassroots innovators - from reducing obesity in rural Kenya or countering the commercial determinants of diabetes in low-income neighbourhoods in San Francisco.

Background

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are among the world’s most urgent and complex health challenges. Cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease and mental health conditions account for over 74% of all global deaths, and their complex risk factors are often intertwined with the negative impacts of additional determinants of health. NCDs are also a matter of equity, as the vast majority of the 17 million premature NCD-related deaths every year occur in lower- and middle-income countries.

Contextualizing and scaling proven, cost-effective interventions such as the “NCD best buys” remains a priority, but innovative solutions are urgently needed to fast-track progress and avert millions of preventable deaths from NCDs.

The recent World Health Innovation Forum in Vizag, India explored strategies to sustainably scale health innovations through the public sector. This article presents the third of three takeaways on why and how grassroots innovations addressing NCDs can be a part of the solution.