Innovation Ecosystem Approaches: A Learning Brief

After decades of Challenge Funds and single solution approaches, the development sector is shifting toward ecosystem strengthening – supporting the broader environment that enables innovation to flourish.

This learning brief combines foundational guidance with insights from four years of the RISA Fund’s work across six African countries. Ecosystem approaches take longer and are more complex, but generate wider, more sustainable impact. RISA’s experience demonstrates both the transformative potential and practical implementation realities of this approach.

Development agencies spent years chasing breakthrough innovations like M-PESA through Challenge Funds. Between 2000 and 2014, this approach attracted £850 million across three donors, creating hundreds of competing funds in countries like Kenya.

Results were often disappointing. Only a tiny fraction achieved meaningful scale, while the same “usual suspects” repeatedly won funding. The fundamental flaw was assuming financial support alone could drive sustainable impact.

M-PESA’s success wasn’t just about technology. It was about ecosystem conditions that enabled it to thrive. When tried in South Africa without these conditions, it failed.

It takes an ecosystem to scale an innovation. Just as companies need R&D capacity, countries need strong innovation ecosystems to systematically generate and scale solutions. This led FCDO to launch RISA as the UK government’s first systematic effort at strengthening innovation ecosystems.

RISA’s work demonstrates that strengthening innovation ecosystems delivers long-term, sustainable benefits beyond any single project. By fostering relationships and collaborative processes, RISA has supported over 80 joint initiatives, mobilized $37 million, and scaled impact through training-of-trainers models—such as Viktoria Solutions’ 38 trainers who reached over 400 participants across Kenya and Ethiopia.

Ecosystem approaches also build social capital by promoting collaboration over competition, increasing inclusion of marginalized groups, and connecting innovators with funding opportunities. Examples include the University of Gondar’s “Women in Science” conference and Impact Investing Ghana’s partnerships with female-led businesses.

Using evidence-driven deployment, RISA identified the most effective thematic areas—networking, gender equality, scaling pathways, policy environments, and research quality—and concentrated resources for maximum impact.

Finally, ecosystem approaches enable cross-border learning, with initiatives like the Africa Research and Innovation Commercialization Summit and the Innovative Manufacturing in Africa project linking actors across Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, building technical capacity and fostering knowledge exchange.

Read more: Innovation Ecosystem Approaches: A Learning Brief