TY - JOUR T1 - Building the social innovation for health ecosystem in Latin America: experiences and learning from SIHI-LAC JF - BMJ Innovations JO - BMJ Innov SP - 224 LP - 233 DO - 10.1136/bmjinnov-2021-000898 VL - 8 IS - 3 AU - Lindi van Niekerk AU - Maria Isabel Echavarria AU - Jackeline Alger AU - Diana Maria Castro-Arroyave AU - Martha Milena Bautista-Gomez AU - Claudia Ivette Nieto Anderson AU - Briana Yasmin Beltran AU - Luis Gabriel Cuervo A2 - , Y1 - 2022/07/01 UR - http://innovations.bmj.com/content/8/3/224.abstract N2 - Social innovation for health has grown in relevance and momentum across Latin America.1–5 Yet, the potential of social innovation for health appears mostly untapped, with one reason for this being the limited investment to build strong ecosystems that can support social innovation initiatives.6–8 The Social Innovation in Health Initiative for Latin America and the Caribbean (SIHI-LAC) is an ecosystem approach to advance social innovation within health systems across this region. The paper presents the SIHI-LAC experience, the influence it has had on social innovation initiatives for health, and the lessons learnt over the past 6 years. In addition, this paper provides guidance to other countries and regions interested in strengthening their social innovation for health ecosystems.Social innovation has gained prominence in countries across Latin America and the Carribean (LAC) as an approach to addressing social challenges, raising social participation, increasing empowerment, especially of marginalised groups, and bringing about systems transformation.2 It has also become a niche for community-based research and the co-creation of knowledge.9 10 The principles of social innovation in LAC are firmly aligned to the more democratic paradigm of social innovation in which community and social participation, and social justice are key features.2 This social innovation approach arose in opposition to the longstanding paternalistic top-down development approach in LAC.2 The democratic paradigm differs from the technocratic paradigm, which is more expert-led and implemented from the top down, as is more common in European contexts.11 As per Franz et al,12 social innovation displays the innovative agency of civil society and movements.The 2015 SI (social innovation)-DRIVE global and regional mapping study of social innovation initiatives found that the majority of social innovation initiatives in LAC were focused on poverty alleviation and sustainable development (77%), education and employment (52%), followed … ER -