ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the high likelihood that the impact of the COVID pandemic will be to deepen South Africa's stagnation in the middle-income trap, or even regression to lower levels of economic and human development. It draws out insights from the South African evidence to consider ways to mainstream the kinds of innovation policy and research more relevantly oriented to tackle the developmental challenges of the Global South. The chapter considers evidence from the South African case, to contribute to the growing recognition that in the Global South, innovation models should be oriented to transformation and inclusive development. One of the conditions facilitating the formation of the upgrading coalition was the rapid integrated response of key actors in the health innovation system. In effect, the national strategy was to build an “upgrading coalition” to harness actors across the national system of innovation to respond to the global health pandemic.
