Social Innovation in Health

The Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI) is a network of passionate individuals and institutions combining their skills and resources in support of key activities to promote social innovation in health. We are neither a formal partnership nor a funding body.

We share a common goal to advance social innovation in achieving Sustainable Development Goals and improving lives of communities in low- and middle-income countries. Our mission is to unlock the capacity residing within the actors of the health system to advance social innovation. We do this through south-south-north collaboration in three areas: 

RESEARCH
We conduct research on community-based models and develop tools / mechanisms to advance research.

COUNTRY CAPACITY
We strengthen the capacity for social innovation and research in social innovation amongst universities and health system actors in LMICs.

ADVOCACY
Engage with global, national and local strategic influencers to embed social innovation as an approach in the health agenda and foster a collaborative movement.

The network was launched in 2014 through joint efforts of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and TDR, the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases.

In 2017, the SIHI network expanded to include additional partners from low- and middle-income countries: University of Malawi College of Medicine in Malawi; Makerere University School of Public Health in Uganda; University of Philippines Manila College of Medicine; Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health initiative in China; and Centro Internacional de Entrenamiento e Investigaciones Medicas (CIDEIM) in Colombia in collaboration with ICESI University and the Pan American Health Organization.

In addition, SIHI is collaborating with several organizations such as the Fondation Mérieux, the Ahimsa Fund, the WHO Department of Service Delivery and Safety, WHO AFRO, and the United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health.