Innovation is about more than just new technologies – however groundbreaking, they won’t change the lives of the world’s poorest children, families and communities on their own. Putting innovation to work for a fairer world involves dealing with laws, infrastructure, institutions, cultural values, social norms, markets, money and people – and it often means challenging the status quo.

A range of initiatives are supporting innovation that benefits the poorest children and families. Prominent thinkers are devising new incentives for drug manufacturers to develop treatments for child killers like tuberculosis, which disproportionately affect people who can’t pay high prices. Open source product development and copyright exceptions are breaking down intellectual property restrictions to build a new system that promotes collaboration and adaptation and expands access to information and technologies.

Partnerships that combine businesses’ technical capacities, resources and distribution networks with the development community’s knowledge and experience are creating new markets geared towards the needs of underserved communities. Synergies between public and private, global and local are helping to boost the impact of local innovations and surmount the obstacles that bar the poorest children from realizing their rights.