Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) India Learning Activity

Date

May 2022

Location

India

Sectors

Economic Growth

Contract

USAID’s DIV program has invested $34 million in 54 grants in India since the program’s inception in 2010. This study aimed to understand the status of these grants and what enabled or hindered their success in scaling and reaching impact for their target populations. Twelve closed grants were included in this study, spanning five sectors (health, energy, economic growth, education, and training, WASH), and represent $12,484,810 of investment (approximately 37 percent of DIV’s total investment in India). This lookback study defines an innovation as successful if the core model was available to its target users in its target market system at the time of the study.

This study found that several innovations have experienced massive scale and impact in India and globally across several sectors. Other innovations faced serious challenges in getting their product to market to reach their intended audiences, which were limited in both scale and impact. Across the 12 grants included in this review, several key factors helped to enable success, and others hindered success in scaling and reaching target populations with social outcomes. Most of the successful grants:

  • Had a robust in-country presence, enabling them to quickly pivot and adapt to changing contextual elements and manage operational challenges on the ground.
  • Identified and secured strategic follow-on funding before the end of their DIV grant to continue their testing and scaling strategy. Evidence of impact alone did not drive success, but those with strong evidence.
  • Leveraged this evidence of impact to secure key additional scaling partners and funding.
  • Established key strategic partnerships that advanced the needs of the innovation’s model to reach its target users and facilitate an innovation’s scale and impact.

The public sector was a key distributing partner was key to rapid scale within India and beyond. Other grants successfully identified key distribution partners aligned with their social mission and business model. Overall, key informants shared positive feedback on the DIV experience. The flexible funding came at a critical stage in an innovation’s scale journey.

Photo Credit:  Flickr. Asia Development Bank. “Representatives of Simpa Networks going to the Sonsa, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh to demo and explain the benefits of Simpa energy solar set to the residents.” February 2014

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