Innovation is one of those things that is prized, but not always seen if it shows up in low or middle income countries. Or at least that is part of the argument in a recent paper by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that looks at innovation in the context of the pandemic.

The paper gives three real world examples of solving COVID 19 problems which were developed locally “thanks to the novel ideas, approaches and methods of people in the countries where the problems arose.” Then it talks about how western funders and agencies can find and support such innovation. Which is, apparently, not so easy as one would think because there does seem to be a bias toward assuming innovation happens in the global north.