360° Urban Innovations Goals and Objectives

360° Urban Innovations follows the same ethos of 360° Village Innovations, but recognizes that urban environments are often more complex and less cohesive than rural settings. In addition, individuals living in urban settings typically have easier access to services that already exist. Therefore, 360° Urban Innovations are targeted and subject specific efforts designed to build capacity to address a specific community needs.

The Urban Jungle: Finding Responsible Solutions

Urban marginalized and low-income communities worldwide in both developed and developing countries face monumental challenges today. It is often difficult to see the potential of marginalized and low-income urban communities through the window of violence, unemployment, communicable diseases, drug and alcohol abuse, malnourishment and the many other challenges faced by these communities. Marginalized and low-income urban populations tend to spiral deeper into despair rather than toward progress, making identification of existing capacities more difficult.

	Focusing on the vulnerabilities of these populations and failing to assist them to strengthen their capacities, risks creating a social order where these populations are unable to contribute to the collective wealth and development of their communities and countries. In turn, governments and business entities trying to expand their operations in areas with marginalized and low income populations suffer monetary losses.
The picture is challenging, but Global Public Health Innovations (GPHI) believes in empowering communities to meet these challenges. GPHI has an extensive array of tools to identify capacities in urban settings and find ways to work with communities to reduce vulnerabilities. We work with people to identify and meet their own needs and with governments and business entities to bridge their social responsibility needs.

GPHI's sustainable community capacity building model was developed by Dr. Ananda S. Millard. For more than a decade, Dr. Millard has worked in research and program implementation, including designing and implementing data collection tools. She is responsible for building capacity at the national level in more than 40 countries and has extensive experience working in conflict and post conflict zones in rural and urban environments. She has worked and published on numerous issues including Armed Violence, Gender Based Violence, Landmines, Child Soldiers, Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration, and Livelihood Mappings. Dr. Millard has a Ph.D. in Post-Conflict Transformation, a Masters in Conflict Analysis and a B.A. in International Studies with a focus on Economy.