Work4Progress: Innovation for fostering employment

"la Caixa" Foundation

Agirre Lehendakaria Center, through the center's director, leads the scientific management of the international Work4Progress programme of "la Caixa" Foundation. Launched in 2017, it seeks to promote innovation and quality employment among women and young people in vulnerable situations in India, Mozambique, Peru and Colombia; with special emphasis on sustainable technological innovation and green jobs in rural areas.

Work4Progress applies ALC's Social Innovation Platform approach, seeking interconnection between organizations and actions around shared objectives, methodologies and evaluation systems, in order to achieve systemic impact.

We support entity networks

We support entity networks

We support networks of entities that work together to develop prototypes on the ground to check their viability and identify those initiatives that generate employment that are most efficient.

We generate a new collaboration culture

We generate a new collaboration culture

We generate a new culture of collaboration between entities that are working in the same geographical area, with the aim of increasing their impact and creating sustainable actions.

We promote innovation

We promote innovation

We promote innovation in products, services and/or processes.

We incorporate new processes

We incorporate new processes

We incorporate new processes of constant monitoring and evaluation that allow the programme to be adapted to the needs of each territory in real time.

So far, the programme has reached more than 140,000 people, of whom more than 60% are women and more than 46% are young people. We have defined and tested 166 prototypes of businesses, services and technological innovations that have enabled more than 19,000 inclusive companies to be launched and more than 40,000 new jobs to be created.

We promote Social Innovation Platforms

through listening, co-creation, prototyping and acceleration of innovative solutions adapted to the local cultural context, thus increasing their capacity for success and impact in the territory

Listening

How can we understand in depth the dynamics and social and economic perceptions that operate in the area? How do we create and systematize spaces for collective deliberation? What kind of information do we use to make sense of our analysis?

Co-creation

How to co-create new solutions for specific (even contradictory) perceptions with a portfolio logic (interconnected initiatives and at five levels of impact: community innovation, small and medium scale, large scale, public services and new regulation)?

III

Prototype and acceleration

The prototypes of the W4P programme are initiatives for the generation of employment that are launched on a small scale to test their viability. They have been identified through the process of community listening and developed through the process of co-creation.

Discover more at Work4Progress