Serious improvements in health service productivity and quality are required if rising health costs are to be contained, soaring middle class demand in rapidly growing economies is to be satisfied and the health needs of the poor are to be met. Technical innovations are generating new treatments, techniques and pharmaceuticals. Less progress is being made in improving the service delivery systems, financing and organisational arrangements that will guarantee access to the poor. With some notable exceptions, the sources of public sector innovations and their diffusion have received little systematic attention.

OPI is working with the India Development Foundation in Delhi to analyse some 450 projects submitted to the Global Development Network in a competition for innovative health projects in order to determine the patterns of innovation and diffusion. The projects are being classified by type of innovation, geographical location, sources of funding and whether they are truly innovative, copies or adaptations from innovations elsewhere.