CAF and Compromiso Empresarial Reward 10 Best Social Innovation Initiatives of 2020

For the fifth consecutive year, CAF—development bank of Latin America—and magazine Compromiso Empresarial have praised the innovative nature of 10 initiatives launched in 2020 in Latin America and Spain to offer solutions to different social problems.

After receiving more than 250 nominations from different Spanish-speaking countries, selecting the 20 semi-finalists and more than 4,000 votes cast on social media, the jury has selected the 10 best social innovation initiatives of 2020.

In a year radically marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the winning initiatives revolved around this problem and the need to alleviate its effects, but other selected projects promote issues like transparency, good governance, care for the elderly or education of the most vulnerable groups. The honored initiatives include:

- Financial inclusion in pandemic, from Bancamía, an entity under the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, helped bring more than 182,100 Colombians in 162 municipalities into the banking system so that they could receive the COVID-19 relief aid granted by the Colombian government.

- The play Cómo me duele chilito by the theater company Bendito Teatro, composed of actors with Down syndrome, continued their work on the Zoom online platform and premiered a play based on their feelings in relation to the pandemic in Chile.

- #MédicosfrentealCOVID is an initiative in which more than 900 volunteer doctors offered free telemedicine to the entire Spanish and Peruvian population, with more than 30,000 people served. In Spain, it was developed with the DKV Seguros “Quiero cuidarme más” app, and with SISOL in Peru.

- Cemex built mobile hospitals in 15 days in response to the COVID-19 contingency in Mexico and Spain. The buildings were assembled with prefabricated concrete modules with antibacterial paint, with hospital-grade vinyl flooring and access ramps.

- Coca-Cola’s Todo irá a mejor meetings seek to help the emotional recovery of the people most affected by the health crisis by holding face-to-face or online meetings led by professionals, especially aimed at women, young people and people with disabilities. 

- The Pediatric Day Unit of the Vianorte-Laguna Foundation, which supports low-income families by offering free treatments and therapies during the day to children with advanced incurable diseases, adapted the service so that it could be offered at home in this emergency situation.

- Cuidadores360 is a project of the Trabajo y Persona Civil Association for online training of persons with a proven vocation of service as caregivers of the elderly in Venezuela. The program also has the technology to build empathy towards the elderly through the use of an “empathy simulator”.

- The Karewa Rally is an exercise in social oversight in which young people perform checks on the proper use of money in Mexico’s public procurement. For weeks, groups of students gather evidence, make recommendations, and share it at a public event before a panel of experts.

- The Education Stoplight of the Paraguaya Foundation is a tool that uses technology, self-evaluates the current educational conditions of participants, determines their gaps, challenges and strengths, in order to design personalized strategies.

- ICmedia has created the Influencers Trust Project, a label to evaluate the transparency and accountability of content creators on social media, i.e., “influencers”.

The ceremony will be held online through a webinar, where the ten winners can describe their projects and initiatives.

“The coronavirus pandemic has posed extraordinary challenges in all areas of life, while putting enormous pressure on the most vulnerable and poorest groups in Latin America. The unprecedented nature of the combination of factors in this pandemic compels us to seek efficient solutions as soon as possible. In a context of great uncertainty, creativity and social innovation become the sources of key tools to protect marginalized groups in our society and mitigate some of the harsh economic and social consequences they face,” explained Ana Mercedes Botero, Director of Social Innovation at CAF—development bank of Latin America.

“Hence the importance of an award of this nature, which has selected in the fifth edition high-impact experiences that demonstrate the ability of social innovation to come up with quick and effective solutions,” added Botero.

“All the initiatives analyzed for these awards highlight the importance of civil society when it comes to providing innovative and rapid responses to social problems, especially in urgent contexts such as the pandemic. The close proximity to social problems makes them more agile and decisive in the proposal and implementation of solutions tailored to real circumstances,” noted María López Escorial, president of the Compromiso y Transparencia Foundation, and editor of CE.

“For us it is a privilege to have the support of an institution such as CAF to provide visibility to these initiatives, and to encourage more groups to join in developing innovative social initiatives that address the problems of our society," she concluded.

About Compromiso Empresarial

The magazine Compromiso Empresarial, published by the Compromiso y Transparencia foundation, was created in Spain in June 2005, and is led by a group of professionals with the aim of disseminating best practices, analyses and trends on initiatives in the field of social innovation. www.compromisoempresarial.com