Dissemination of innovative cases: learning from sub-national programs in Brazil1

Marta Ferreira Santos Farah2

1. Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the innovation
process in government and in the public sector as well as to the debate about dissemination
or diffusion of innovations bringing some lessons from innovative programs promoted by
sub-national governments in Brazil.
The reflections presented here were developed taking into account the experiences
gathered by the Public Management and Citizenship Program, created in 1996, in Brazil, by
the Ford Foundation and by Fundao Getulio Vargas (FGV-EAESP), a school of Business
and Public Administration, in So Paulo, with the support of the National Bank for
Economic and Social Development (BNDES). The objectives of this program are to give
awards to innovations in public administration and public policies, which contribute to the
extension of citizenship in our country, as well as to disseminate the innovative initiatives.
The focus of the program is the sub-national governments in Brazil.
The Program Management and Citizenship Program, now in its 10th year, has a data
bank with almost 9.000 innovative programs in different sectors (health, education, children
and youth, public security, gender, local development, poverty alleviation, environment,
budgeting, electronic government, digital inclusion, and so on), which came from different
regions of Brazil.
These experiences, from which 180 have received awards, bring some lessons
about:
a. What is happening in Brazil, in terms of innovation in government and in the
public sector in the last decades;
b. The innovation process in the public sector and in government;
c. The dissemination or diffusion of innovative experiences.
This paper will focus onlessons about the innovation and the dissemination processes,
as the purpose of this Meeting - Approaches and methodologies for the assessment and
transfer of best practices in governance and public administration - is to construct some
common knowledge that go beyond the national and local specificities.
But, as the paper will emphasize, in the permanent tension between generalization and
the singular cases, between generalization and the specificity of each context, it is
important to remain always linked to the sources of our reflections in the reality, to escape
from the risk of not being capable of getting back to the national and local realities,

1
Paper prepared for the UNDESA Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Approaches and methodologies for the
assessment and transfer of best practices in governance and public administration. Tunis, Tunisia, 13-14
June 2005.
2
Co-director of the Public Management and Citizenship Program Programa Gesto Pblica e Cidadania, a
Brazilian award program on innovation..

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giving them some effective contribution. In this perspective, the considerations about the
innovation process as well as about dissemination will have as reference the experiences
from Brazil.

2 The innovation process

2.1 What is innovation in government and in public administration?

Innovations in government and in public sector are incremental or radical changes in the
characteristics of the public sector and in government. In the private sector, innovations are
new products or new processes (originally in industrial processes of production, but today
not only in this area), which give to the innovative firm the opportunity to have a positive
differentiation in a competitive scenario.
In public sector, the qualitative leap or advance also occurs through new products
or new processes:
a) New products of the public sector activities, as public policies and programs or
public services.
Here, the subject of change are the following dimensions of the governmental
action or public administration activities: what is done, for whom and with what
approach?
b) New processes, that is, through new ways of doing what government does.
Here, the subject of change is how do governments and the public sector organize
its activities, how are the services delivered. It includes new processes of
decision-making and of implementation.

2.2 Why does innovation occur in government and in the public sector?
Innovation is not a new event in the history of government and public sector.
Innovations occur all the time but it is possible to identify historically some periods in
which there is a kind of innovation trend in some countries. These innovation trends are
associated mainly to important changes on the role of the State (in different levels of
government) and in its functions. Innovations trends are also affected by technological
advances, which establish opportunities to change the ways public services are delivered
and public sector is organized. But the main factor to support an innovation trend is related
to changes in the role of the State and of government3.
In Brazil, for instance, we can establish a parallel between a first period of
innovation, which began in the decade of 30 of the XX century and the recent innovation
trend, in the last decades. In the first period, it were established in Brazil the roots of the
National-Developmental State. A centralized cycle of the Brazilian federalism began, the
State or the federal government assuming a new role the role of inductor of national

3
In this section we wont discuss the differences between municipalities in the same period, but rather the
main context that explains a kind of wave of innovation in some periods. The discussion about
dissemination and diffusion in the following sections deals with difference between localities and
governments.

2
development. The thirties and the following decades in Brazil were years of a strong
process of institutional innovation and of introduction of new practices in the Brazilian
public administration. The federal government had to prepare itself for its new role, through
the creation of new institutions and through the incorporation of bureaucratic procedures to
the governmental organizations, trying to overcome traditional practices of patrimonialism
and to construct an effective public sector not captured by segments of Brazilian elites.
The innovation trend of the last decades began in eighties in Brazil, with the
democratization of the country, after a period of about 20 years of dictatorship. In the
democratization process, a new role was given to the sub-national governments, mainly to
the municipalities. The new role of the local government established a new face to
Brazilian federalism, institutionalized in the new Constitution of 1988.
But the new importance of municipalities was also associated to a more
comprehensive process, affecting different countries: the process of globalization, and the
reduction of the role of federal or central governments followed by an emphasis on
decentralization and local government.
Changes in the role of the State or government include a redefinition of what
government does, but also important changes in the way government implements its
policies or programs. Usually these changes are associated to a critical view about
government processes in a previous period.
In Brazil, the periods of innovation mentioned before had also this orientation to a
new way of doing government and public administration. In the first period, some of the
critical issues related to government processes were: a) the necessity to fight against
patrimonialism in public policies and public administration; b) the excessive
decentralization and fragmentation in Brazilian government in the beginning of the XX
Century and the absence of a national agenda; c) the absence of a public administration
bureaucracy based on modern principles of impersonality.
In the second period, in the last decades of the twenty-century, the main criticism
about Brazilian government and public administration was related to:
a. Excessive centralization on federal government;
b. Non democratic processes of formulation and implementation of public
policies and programs;
c. Exclusion of important segments of Brazilian population to the access of
public services and social policies;
d. Impermeability of public policies, programs and governmental agencies to
the concrete needs of citizens;
e. Lack of social control and evaluation;
f. Lack of mechanisms of accountability.
So, in the last decades in Brazil, as in the first period of concentrated innovation, a
change in the role of government both in the sense of what government does as in the
sense of how government acts - was the basis for the emergence of innovation as well as for
the dissemination of new institutions and innovative experiences.

3
 This last movement of innovation in Brazil has been stimulated by two main
factors:
a. The democratization process, linked in Brazil to decentralization.
In the 80s, after two decades of dictatorship, Brazil adopted a democratic
regime. The redemocratization included a process of decentralization,
followed by innovations on public policies and programs. Since the
Constitution of 88, the municipalities had to assume new responsibilities and
had to prepare themselves for their new role. At the same time, there was a
strong demand for a new way of defining and implementing public policies
which should include democratic and participative mechanisms. The main
actors and institutions that influenced the innovation process here were
national ones.
b. The fiscal crisis and the crisis of the National-developmental paradigm.
Since the end of the decade of 1980, the fiscal crisis affected the capacity of
the State on giving effective answers to the demands of the Brazilian society,
especially on social policies. The growing limits of resources on the public
sector were followed by a strong commitment with efficiency. This new
concern also influenced the introduction of innovations on government and in
the public sector, to give more efficiency to public policies. The actors and
institutions that influenced innovations with this perspective were national
and external ones.
The new role of municipalities in Brazil since the 80s requires new institutions and
new practices. This innovation movement includes, on one hand, new policies and new
programs (innovations in the products of government and the public sector) and, in the
other hand, innovation in the process of decision-making the formulation of public
policies and in the process of implementation.
In spite of the specificity of the Brazilian context, it is possible to identify similar
trends in other countries, especially in Latin America. But even in other regions, this kind
of analysis, based on the relations between innovation and the role of the State or
government, eventually can be useful. The emphasis on the relations between the profile of
the State and innovation maybe could be useful also to reflect about countries in which the
main challenge is not linked to changes in role of the State of government, but rather to the
effort of building national or local governments in scenarios of post-independence, post-
war or post-civil war or in contexts of redefinition of national boundaries and identities.

3 Transferability of innovations

3.1 Innovation or best practice

To discuss transferability, dissemination and diffusion it is important to discuss
beforehand the concept of best practice and innovation, because this conceptualization
affects the understanding about the dissemination or diffusion process. The concept of best
practice came to the field of governance from the management literature, specifically from
the quality management literature (Myers, Smith and Martin, 2004). In spite of an effective

4
lack of precise definition about the concept, used in distinct disciplines, it is possible to
identify some common elements present in the utilization of the term, in different areas,
which reflect the origin of the term in the management field.
One of these elements is the focus on the performance of an organization or program:
a superior method or innovative practice that contributes to the improved performance of
an organization, usually recognized as best by other peer organizations. (UNDESA,
2005).
A second element is the focus on the technique adopted to deal with a problem or
challenge, mainly on a social technique (Myers, Smith and Martin, 2004).
A third component of the concept of best practice is the idea of a model, which can be
replicated in different contexts as it was originally conceived and implemented. The
replicability of a social technique is an intrinsic component of the concept, which is
essentially a relational concept: it emerged linked to the idea of improvement of
management looking to the best practices available, which supposes the comparison
between different cases.
In this sense the concept of best practice has a subjacent idea of an innovation as a
complete and closed solution, an "one piece" integrated solution, which implicitly
prescribes a specific and unique way of responding to a challenge or problem.
The recent literature about Policy Reform, in the field of Political Science and Public
Policy studies, also adopts the idea of models, as a reference for political change in
different countries (Melo, 2004; Weyland, 2004). In a recent book about the influence of
foreign models in Latin American policy reform, Weyland discusses what turns a policy
change in one country into a model that prompts emulation by others (2004, p.6). In his
analysis of public policy reform, the focus goes beyond the social practice, including
political components in the model itself and in the analysis of the adoption of a model.
But the notion of model persists, in the sense of a complete and closed answer. In the
words of Kurt Weyland:
a model has a coherent design principle. Embodying an overarching idea, it
prescribes an integrated solution to a perceived problem. A model is thus of one
piece a model can be defined as the prescriptive condensation of a new
paradigm (Kuhn, 1970) in a specific policy arena. (Weyland, 2004, p. 7 e 8)
In such a perspective there is a risk of neglecting the influence of different contexts in
the design of each solution and, at the same time, the importance of the process that
brings to the innovation.
Another perspective, the one adopted in this paper, is the one that considers an
innovation as an answer to a challenge and a problem, which can be useful to others as part
of a repertoire of alternatives to be considered by those who deal with a similar problem.
This specific answer or innovation, in this perspective, is not seen as a complete and
closed solution, to be transferred to other countries or localities, but rather as something
in process of permanent transformation. It is a particular, new and successful arrangement
(set) of elements, a temporary condensation of components, which can be potentially useful
to other contexts and localities, as a solution for a specific problem.

5
 In this perspective the prescriptive component present in the notion of model is
abandoned, replaced by the perspective of an alternative to be considered by those who
make the decision about policies and programs in other countries and realities.
In such a perspective, the social technique is one of the important aspects of the
innovation success, but as important as this aspect are elements of the context of its
formulation and implementation. The simple transference of a social technique to another
reality country or municipality isnt sufficient to its effectiveness, because as important
as the technique are the contextual elements which gave birth to the innovation.
If the contextual elements are a component of the success of the innovation in the place
it is identified, they are also important in the places in which it can potentially be adopted.
This means, in first place, that the use of the innovation affects innovation itself.
Each one that selects one specific innovation as a possible solution to his problem
introduces a change in the innovation, in this way being part simultaneously of the
dissemination process and of the creative process of an innovation (Latour, 2000;
PAULICS, 2004). In this perspective, the innovation is not a closed model, but rather an
open solution, which is transformed by those who adopts it, through a permanent process of
incremental changes.
Adopting this conception about the process of innovation (and not best practice), we
present in the following sections some ideas about the process of dissemination. These
ideas were developed looking to the Brazilian innovative experiences at the local level and
the dissemination of some of these experiences from one locality to other municipalities in
the last decades (FARAH, 2004; SUGIYAMA, 2004; FARAH, 2004 b).

3.2 Dissemination or diffusion of innovations

What are the factors that contribute to the dissemination of an innovation? If one adopts
the perspective of best-practice-replication, the focus of the analysis about transferability
goes to the innovation itself and to its characteristics, that is, it is supposed that the
diffusion depends essentially on the intrinsic characteristics of each innovation. It depends
on the characteristics of the model if it can be adopted by other realities.
In the perspective that sees innovation as an alternative from a repertoire of possibilities
and not as a model the one best way the importance of the context is emphasized in
the analysis, in the sense that it is the recipient country or locality the one that defines the
characteristics of an innovation it can use. It doesnt mean that the innovation itself is not
considered in this perspective of analysis. But the characteristics of the innovation are seen
as part of a set of aspects as important as this one.
The term dissemination reflects better this perspective than the term replication4. This
last term suggests the reproduction of a model. There is implicitly a central-periphery
approach, the innovation going from a creative center to other places. This is the diffusion
most common perspective linked to the first researches on this area, made by Rogers

4
The term diffusion is the term adopted by the literature. We can use both dissemination and diffusion. But
the use of the term diffusion has been associated to a center-periphery approach, similar to the replicability
perspective. That is the reason to the use in this paper we use mainly the term dissemination.

6
(1962). The term dissemination suggests a more horizontal perspective, including the
active selection and incorporation of ideas and practices by others. The best practice-
replication perspective attributes a passive role to the recipient country or locality. The
innovation-dissemination approach gives a more active role to the countries or localities
that decide to search for a solution for their problems.
With this perspective as a reference, we try in this paper to reflect upon the mechanisms
that explain the process of dissemination. To understand why dissemination occurs (and
why sometimes it doesnt occur) the following dimensions must be considered:

Intrinsic characteristics of the innovation

The first element that makes an innovation a potential candidate to a dissemination
process, being one of the alternatives to be considered by other countries or localities, as a
particular, new and successful arrangement (set) of elements, is its capacity to give an
effective answer to new problems or its capacity to answer to an old problem in a new and
successful way.
The innovation, as we have seen before in this paper, can be a new policy or program or
a new procedure. In the Brazilian case, there are innovative initiatives at the local level in
different areas, as mentioned before, from which we can select some examples.
A first example is the Program Casa Rosa Mulher (Rose Woman House), from the
municipality of Rio Branco, in the State of Acre, in the Amazon Region. This program,
from 1996, gives support in a shelter-house to girls and women victims of violence
(sexual violence and domestic violence) and to girls exposed to the risk of prostitution,
traffic of women and drugs, through integrated services in areas such as psychological and
juridical support, health assistance, education and job opportunities. It is one of the first
programs with this focus in Brazil and certainly the first in the Amazon Region, and at the
same time, the first one to address this new problem (new in the sense that it was
recognized as a social problem very recently) with an integrated approach, oriented to the
reinsertion of women in their community.
A second example is the Poupatempo (Save time program), created in 1996 by the State
of So Paulo, in the southeast, a very modern and dynamic region of Brazil. Through this
initiative, the government put together in the same place more than 30 public services and
established a new paradigm of public attendance, guaranteeing efficiency, quality of
services as well as quality of interaction between public servants and citizens. The
innovation in this case is essentially an innovation in public service procedures.
As important as the capacity of solving problems is the perception that the innovation
has the capacity to address relevant issues. For some authors, the perception is in fact even
more important than the innovations effective capacity of solving problems (Weyland,
2004, Melo, 2004).

Nature of the problem addressed

A second characteristic relevant to the analysis of the transferability of an innovation
is the nature of the problem addressed. If the problem addressed by the innovation is
present in other localities or countries, the innovation has the potentiality to be useful to
these places.

7
 An example from Brazil is the Program Bolsa-Escola (School-Grant Program), which
was implemented as an innovation simultaneously in the middle of the 90s by two different
localities in Brazil (the Federal District and Campinas, in the State of So Paulo - with a
different name Renda Mnima Minimum Grant), as an initiative of two different
political parties.
The initiative is a Minimum Grant program to low-income families, associated to the
permanence of children in elementary school (every children between 7 and 14 must be in
school). The program is based on the assumption that to eradicate poverty, on a long-term
perspective, it is necessary to establish a rupture with the poverty cycle, which maintain in
poverty whole families through different generations. To guarantee this rupture it is
necessary to extend the access to education to the children of poor families.
This innovation was disseminated to many municipalities over the country, initially in a
horizontal basis, that is from a municipality to other, through networks established by
political parties, politicians, public servants and professional communities linked to the
social policies sphere. On a second moment, the federal government adopted the innovation
as a federal program implemented and managed at the municipal level, which contributed
to strengthen the process of dissemination.
Nowadays, the same program is in process of dissemination to other countries, which
face the problem of eradicating poverty, mainly in Latin America.

Perception about the relevance of the problem addressed

The existence of a similar problem in other localities is not a factor sufficient to
stimulate the transference of an innovation. The innovation will be adopted by other
localities if social and political actors from these other countries or municipalities see the
problem addressed by the innovation as a relevant problem, which deserve an answer and
the search of innovative responses. This aspect points to the importance of internal
elements of the recipient countries to the transference of innovations. The definition of a
problem as a social and political issue in these countries is a condition to the adoption of
innovative initiatives in public sector.
In the example mentioned before, the Bolsa-Escola Program, the transference from a
municipality to other was based on the selection of poverty and elementary education as
relevant social and political issues by the localities that adopted (and adapted) the program.
The same happens in the process of transference to other Latin American countries: in
2000, the X Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and of Government in Panama
recommended the adoption of Bolsa-Escola Program by Latin America countries, which
suggests the problem addressed is considered relevant as well as the innovation itself.

Convergence with the public policies agenda of different countries and localities

It is important also to consider the innovation in its relation with the public policy
agenda in different countries and localities. If the problems addressed by the innovation as
well as the way it addresses them are convergent with the public policies agenda in the
countries or localities to which the innovation should potentially be disseminated, it has a

8
chance to be chosen by those involved in the process of public policies formulation and
implementation.
This agenda is the result of:
a. Structural factors, such as globalization and the fiscal crisis, which
establishes specific and new challenges to government in contemporary
world.
b. The influence of external agencies, especially financial agencies, through
inductive mechanisms such as conditionalities in the access to funding,
and through the diffusion of ideas in international forums.
c. The influence of social and political internal actors, such as politicians,
bureaucrats and experts, partisans and social movements in each country
or locality.
It is important to recognize the influence of this local agenda in the process of
dissemination to avoid the perspective that ignores the context of the recipient countries
or localities. If in these places the agenda doesnt emphasize a specific issue, the intrinsic
characteristics of the innovation are irrelevant: the country or locality doesnt want it,
because it isnt a political and social issue in this specific context.
The influence of external actors, especially of external financial agencies has been
emphasized by the literature on diffusion of innovations in public policies in the
contemporary world. Two mechanisms of influence are emphasized: a) coercive
mechanisms, as the conditioning of access to financial support (Melo, 2004; Cooke, 2004,
Weyland, 2004) and b) knowledge mechanisms through the agencies influence in the
diffusion of ideas by epistemic communities and through public policies international
networks (Melo, 2004).
But, as some analysts show, the emphasis on this influence has minimized
endogenous factors and the presence of internal actors in public policies arenas (Farah,
2004; Melo, 2004, Weyland, 2004).
We can mention as an example the influence of the World Bank in the incorporation
of the participatory management paradigm by the public policies agendas of many
developing countries, as pointed by Cooke (2004). In a recent article about Development
Administration and Management, this author defends the thesis of an external control of
developing countries agendas and thinking by institutions of the First World, such as the
World Bank. Such a perspective minimizes the active presence of internal actors, which
have the capacity of influencing the definition of a national agenda (Farah, 2004) and
which interact with external actors. In the specific case of the participative paradigm, there
was since the 70s in Brazil strong social movements demanding citizens participation in
public policies as an important dimension of the democratization of the country.

Access to information about the innovations

The dissemination of innovations is also dependent on the existence of information.
Information can be disseminated through a direct relationship between the innovator and
other countries or municipalities, following the paths of similarity (Weyland, 2004) and
based, generally, on some level of a previous relationship between the localities.

9
 But the most common diffusion of information supposes the existence of networks,
which can be composed by a specific kind of participant such as bureaucrats and experts
on a specific issue; political parties, NGOs, academic working groups and awards
competitions to publicize innovative governmental programs or can be itself a
composition of different actors (Sugiyama, 2004).
It is important to disseminate information about innovative programs from countries
and localities outside the mainstream, which are not known outside its own frontiers or
boundaries. In this sense, an active role can be played for those interested in broaden the
spectrum of alternatives to be considered by countries and municipalities in the field of
public policies. Internal and external actors can assume this active role.
Weyland discusses the influence of external actors, opposing the direct transmission
of information to the promotion of models by third parties. He considers as third parties
entities from outside the innovative country (or municipality) and the recipient country
(or municipality). Analyzing the diffusion of models of policy reform in Latin America, he
considers that the presence of this third party mainly international organizations has the
advantage of broadening the horizon of innovations, bringing experiences from countries
not in direct contact with the recipient country, but, on the other hand, this indirect
transmission can push uniform solutions that are not appropriate for many countries
(Weyland, 2004, p.14).
Some analysts put the emphasis in this aspect information -, seeing the diffusion
or dissemination of innovative policies strictly as a cognitive issue, the diffusion of
policies being seen just as problem of making information available (Melo, 2004, p. 4).
This is in fact one of the important dimensions of the dissemination process, but it is
not sufficient, as the analysis of the internal diffusion of Bolsa-Escola (School-Grant
Program) and other innovative programs in Brazil, such as the Participatory Budgeting
suggest (Sugiyama, 2004, Wampler, 2004). It is important to consider also the influence of
a choice by political actors at the recipient countries and localities (Melo, 2004,
Sugiyama, 2004).

The selection of innovation by policymakers in recipient countries and localities

The dissemination of innovations in government and in the public sector is
conditioned by an active role played by social and political actors in the recipient countries
or municipalities. This means that the conditions mentioned before are important but not
sufficient to explain the transference of innovations (or the absence of transference).
Internal policymakers act to incorporate an innovation - they can also reject or ignore
it - influencing the process of dissemination. This active role is pointed by Melo (2004, 5):
The mimetism, in this perspective, is seen not as an automatic mechanism, as in
many studies about diffusion, but rather as the result of a choice. In fact, domestic
actors in process of diffusion search actively for public policies models and use, as
well, external actors in a strategic way. In many cases, as pointed by Ikenberry
(1990), these actors engage themselves actively in the search of external pressures, as

10
 these ones can help the executive bureaucracies to implement policies they defend.
(Melo, 2004, p. 5)5
These actors are conditioned, by its turn, by institutional and structural factors. They
are not interacting in an institutional and structural vacuum (Melo, 2004).
The elements of context pointed before, as well as the availability of information
affects this choice. But the following elements are also relevant, defining institutional and
structural constraints to decision at the recipient localities:
a. Political incentives
The adoption of an innovation can be influenced by political incentives linked to the
potential this incorporation has on terms of political benefits. This perspective is the one
privileged by the rational choice approach, which emphasizes the competitive scenario,
opposing parties and politicians in a democracy (Walker, 1969, apud Sugiyama, 2004). The
innovation will be adopted if it is seen as a means to re-election.
Recent studies on the dissemination of innovative programs in Brazil (School-
Grant, Participatory Budgeting and Family-Health programs) suggest that this contributes
to dissemination, but not as an isolated factor (Wampler, 2004; Sugiyama, 2004).
b. Financial incentives
Similar to the political incentives, the decision to adopt an innovation is affected by
the existence of financial incentives. In Brazil, the incorporation of some innovations at the
local level is influenced by financial transferences made by the federal government linked
to the implementation by local governments of some specific innovations (Sugiyama,
2004). This is the case for instance of the Health Family Program, which emerged as a local
initiative and was later transformed on a federal program, conditioned to a voluntary
adoption by municipalities, but dependent on the access to federal resources. Another
example is programs of qualification of elementary school teachers, strongly stimulated in
Brazil by the creation of FUNDEF a federal fund for the development of elementary
school, which establishes that 60% of the resources transferred to each locality must be
used with courses for the teachers.
The same influence can be present in the adoption of innovations by countries under
the pressure of international agencies, which establishes the adoption of some social
technique as a condition to access financial resources.
The influence of this kind of incentive is important, but as the others, it doesnt act
alone. This influence can be affected by the level of dependency (or autonomy) of the
recipient locality to external financial resources.

c. Institutional framework
The adoption of an innovation can be facilitated by the existence of an institutional
framework, which opens the way for the implementation of new procedures, new
institutions and new practices. In Brazil, many of the innovative programs and institutions
at the local level have as an important stimulus an institutional framework established after
the Constitution of 1988, at the federal level. This is the case of the adoption of innovative
5
Original in Portuguese. Translation by the author.

11
programs for children and adolescents, which are supported and facilitated by a national
regulation, the Children and Adolescent Code. The same occurs in the health sector, where
innovative initiatives including preventive care and the integration of different levels of
attention is strongly linked to a federal policy framework, the Unique Health System (SUS
Sistema nico de Sade). The existence of an institutional framework can be seen as an
incentive to the adoption of innovations coherent with its mains principles.
In other cases, the absence of such an institutional framework can be an obstacle to
the adoption of an innovation. For instance, the transference of some innovations at the
local level cant occur in some countries, if the municipality in these recipient countries
doesnt have the institutional autonomy to assume the responsibility for public policies.

d. Structural characteristics of the recipient locality

The adoption of an innovation depends on the existence of a previous administrative
capacity to make it work and to adappt it to local conditions. Some innovations, for
instance, require a financial capacity of the recipient locality. If the innovation requires a
great amount of financial resources it restricts the spectrum of countries or localities, which
can select it and adapt it to their needs, independently of an external financial support.
The same can be said about the technical and administrative requirements of an
innovation.
An example from Brazil is the program Digital Municipality, from Pira, in the state of
Rio de Janeiro. This program, in a period of three years, developed a system of
communication and information, which connects municipal governmental agencies, every
school and public libraries, community Internet access centers, urban firms and rural
producers. The municipality offered 25000 free emails to the citizens, more than the actual
population of the locality. To disseminate this program to other localities, in spite of the
less expensive option on terms of information technology adopted in this case, it is
necessary to have a minimum level of local technical and administrative capacity, as well
as some financial capacity.

e. Path dependency
The decision of selecting an innovation in the field of public policies is also affected
by previous patterns on each field of policy in a specific country. This mean that, in the
same country or municipality, hypothetically it can be more difficult to incorporate an
innovation in the educational policy, for instance, than in the health sector, due to the
previous history of these different sectors in this country.

f. Ideology
The adoption (or rejection) of an innovation by politicians can also be affected by an
ideological selection of alternatives. In a recent study about the dissemination of innovative
programs in Brazil, mentioned before (Sugiyama, 2004), it is suggested that the ideological

12
affiliation of the politicians and the administrators linked to a government limit the range
of policy choices and priorities (p. 15).
This kind of conclusion is important because it introduces explicitly political
components in the decision making process linked to the adoption of an innovation.

4. Conclusion

Innovation in public sector is a new product or a new process developed in the

public sector, including new public policies or new procedures in the governmental sphere.
The emergence of innovations in the public sector is not a new event in the history of
governments, but there was in the last decades a movement of innovative initiatives,
which are linked to the redefinition of the role of the State in contemporary society. This
recent innovation trend is associated to the attribution of a new role to the sub-national
government: new policies, institutions and practices emerges in this scenario.
The concern about transferability of innovations emerges with the conscience about
the challenges faced by government and public administration in the contemporary world
and the expectation that it is possible to learn from others, not having to reinvent the
wheel. To know the innovations developed by different countries and localities is
important as a beginning to the dissemination process. But the discussion about
transferability of innovation in the public sector requires a previous discussion about the
concept to be adopted: best practice or innovation.
The adoption of the concept of best practice emphasizes the idea of a closed model
to be replicated in different countries and municipalities. The concept of innovation
without the qualification of best give more space for the active intervention of the
recipient countries or localities, once the innovation itself is seen as an open alternative,
to be selected freely between other options and to be adopted not as a prescription, but as an
inspiration to something new, deeply linked to the context to where it is transferred.
The conditions that contribute to the dissemination (and not to the replication) of the
innovative initiatives include intrinsic characteristics of the innovation, but a whole set of
other aspects, from the countries and localities that can potentially adopt the initiative.
These aspects include cognitive elements as the transmission of ideas and information;
structural factors, as external conditioning to change and financial and administrative
characteristics of the countries and, finally, institutional and political factors.
Given the complexity of the process of dissemination, it is possible to say that it is
important to recognize that the influence of external actors is limited. One of the ways this
influence occurs is through the dissemination of information. But limited as it is, it can be
optimized through the broadening the set of initiatives available. Three main challenges can
be identified in this specific field: a) the inclusion in the process of information of every
initiative identified as innovative by governments and public administrations themselves as
well as by an expanded network of NGOs, local policies networks, awards programs and
others; b) the translation to different languages of the repertoire of initiatives already
available in specific languages, but until now with an access only to the countries that speak
the same languages; c) the support to the strengthening of autonomous networks, which

13
permit the exchange of information and of evaluation (technical and political) of
innovations by all those interested in this issue.

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