Inclusive development needs an innovation and entrepreneurship policy 332.0
The Aquino Administration ought to add entrepreneurship and innovation policy to its flagship programs to achieve inclusive development. To me, the two current flagship programs of public-private partnership focused on infrastructure and 4Ps through conditional cash transfers (CCT) as safety net for the poorest of the poor are necessary but not sufficient to achieve inclusive [...]
Hapinoy takes two international awards in a month 329.0
Hapinoy, the supply chain innovator for Nanay-owned sari-sari stores, led by Mark Ruiz and Bam Aquino brought new honors home. They took two awards in the space of one month – the first for women’s empowerment and the second for social entrepreneurship. Congratulations! The first award to Hapinoy on August 24 was given by Project [...]
Gloria Steinem shares lesson in change management over historical time 322.0
I am too young to know of Gloria Steinem, leader of the women’s movement in America, who was in the spotlight as fiery women’s leader in the late 60s and 70s. Yet watching her on Charlie Rose last night as they reminisced about the women’s movement and talked about its future, she taught me an [...]
Social Innovation in Campaign Finance to Boost the Art of Associating 313.0
Quietly, many groups are working for better political institutions like campaign finance and program-based political parties as social innovations in the Philippines. I attended a high-powered symposium yesterday – except for the absence of representatives from the key constituency of political parties – on Increasing Transparency in Campaign Finance. Symposiums like these are done to [...]
Modern Industrial Policy Discovers Locomotives in Global Supply Chains 297.0
Modern versions of industrial policy and the broader field of development economics are coming back into center stage says Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz in an IMF blog. This renewal comes after the failure of neoclassical macroeconomics to forecast the recent financial crisis and to explain the continuing success of emerging markets like China and India [...]
Reflections on EDSA – The Need for Embedded Patriotism 291.0
Patriotism, like that of Jose Rizal, ought to be embedded in our hearts for the Philippines to start the journey toward robust development. Institutional changes at many levels – especially embedding patriotism as a norm that facilitates “agreeing to disagree” needed in a democracy – are needed for the Philippines to come together for development. [...]
Social Innovation Spurred the Economic Miracle in Germany 288.0
Is it possible for one whole nation to engage in social innovation by negotiation among her constituencies and create an economic miracle? Yes. Through programmatic political parties, the postwar Germans did negotiate their social innovation called social market economy that spurred the postwar recovery called the Wirtschaftswunder. I will share that story taking off from [...]
Social Innovation to Minimize Election-Related Violence 283.0
At a symposium hosted by the Ateneo School of Government, Leon Trotsky and Max Weber hovered like ghosts in the throng. Their apparitions seem to glower mischievously with each repeated paraphrase of the statement: “The State has the monopoly in the use of ‘legal’ violence” [in its territory]. Speakers and participants seemed to take that [...]
The Philippines Needs Embedded Patriotism to Catch-up 278.0
I picked up my Christmas reading only this week; they got caught up in the Christmas rush getting to New York. I bought the three books to fill up gaps in the development framework for emerging markets that I am trying to cobble up in the context of today’s fast moving technology environment. Briefly, from [...]
Expatriate Filipinos – The Gift that Continues Giving 275.0
The most awaited statistics, I suspect from the President and Cabinet Secretaries to economists and investors, is the amount and growth of remittances from expatriate Filipinos. If the statistics are good and growing, we have a joyful Christmas and plentiful gifts, and the country will have a prosperous new year coasting along and growing as [...]
Competitiveness Demands Social Innovation in Institutions 274.0
None of the five pillars in President Noynoy Aquino’s first Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP), that is being drafted as I write this post, addresses the needed social innovation in Institutions to improve competitiveness for the Philippines. Other than as based on Professor Cantwell’s capabilities, competitiveness is also defined differently by other folks. These definitions [...]
Philippines World Best in Microfinance Regulatory Framework 272.0
There is good news and bad news in the world of microfinance. First, the bad news. As I have noted in SYNTHESiST on November 21, 2010 at the end of the post on CARD MRI, the Philippines best (my take) and largest microfinance institution (MFI), there is a looming crisis in Andra Pradesh, India as [...]
