Development projects do require innovations but the understanding of innovation is actually a key to the solutions being sought. If the belief that innovations are the only way an issue will be resolved becomes the mission statement of the project, the project itself will take the back seat and innovation by itself will become the project. This will also lead to reinvention of the wheel to the benefit of none.

Let us look into the issues in depth. In the cases of development problems as in the cases of business entities innovation may not always be material. In some cases it may involve innovating around the implementation of the project which is an administrative issue. Why do we need an innovative implementation process? In most of the cases the broad policy issues, say with regard to the protection of the environment involving river, forest among others, are written down and approved at the top administrative level. But their implementation requires active local participation with beliefs and credos being highly localized and peculiar to the micro society involved.

The challenge therefore is make the local people understand and accept the issues and solutions involved. That requires creation of awareness. To do that an innovative approach might involve using the local beliefs to the advantage of the project or breaking certain beliefs that may be hurtful to the protection of environment. It may involve taking the local influencers into confidence and get them involved and it is where an innovative approach may yield effective dividends. This is an innovation in the area of garnering participation.

Then there may be technological innovation that may be required to solve a particularly nagging problem of addressing cash transfers for micro-finance collections. Because of the rural reach issues it may not be feasible to provide as adequate armored protection as cash transfers of banks. However use available technologies and it may require innovating around digital fund transfers.

There are of course other innovations like policy rejigging which have become quite a buzz or innovative delivery mechanisms like micro-finance.

However now comes the caution. In the world of development activities, innovation has become a buzzword. But there are risks involved in overemphasizing innovation that actually is a derived ‘love’ from the world of business. For example in issues of innovation in businesses involving rural crafts if one gets into innovation it may turn out to be a total waste of resources as the technology hasn’t changed much in the last hundred years and introduction of innovative existing technology may bring down the retail price of the product.

There is also the issue of risk. A radical change in the use of resources and putting them to use in development may jack up user cost and turn it to be an unwanted burden for the poor without providing any measurable return to the users translating into social profit. Instead it may add to the misery of the target group.

The MFI route as the delivery innovation has proven to be a very effective channel of intervention. The local problems and their solutions are best served by allowing the locals to participate in the solution seeking process while retaining the MFIs as the core funding channels by fostering the process through a business mode. There is a need therefore to focus on the greater utilisation of the MFIs in the process.

Net net while there is no denying the fact that innovation is required in the process of development, there is also a danger involved in the over-reliance on innovation that runs the risk of turning the targets into secondary objective with the innovation that ought to be a tool turning into primary objective.