Hot Ideas, Cool Projects at the Global Development Marketplace

May 25, 2007—Social entrepreneurs from 42 countries brought their development ideas to Washington, DC, this week for Global Development Marketplace, a competition hosted by the World Bank that supports innovative small-scale projects around the world.

Some 104 grassroots health-related projects out of total 2,900 entries qualified for DM's finals May 22 and 23.

The 22 winners split US$4 million in grants from the Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help fund projects under this year's theme—improving results in health, nutrition, and population for the poor. Most awards range from US$80,000 to US$140,000.

A sampling of the projects includes:

• Training women in Kenya to make yogurt that contains beneficial bacteria or yeast to reduce hunger, diarrhea and infections
• Producing highly nutritious food packages from native plants and animals in the Philippines
• Using a peer-driven incentive program to diagnose and treat TB in Russia in and out of prisons
• Training young people in the West Bank and Gaza to provide first aid and other health services to vulnerable children.
• Cultivating drought-resistant highly nutritious xerophyllic plants to improve food security in Brazil's water-scarce northeast
• Providing health education to poor populations in Bangladesh using mobile phones

"There is a community out there of educated, creative people who are committed to grassroots development and who come up with some remarkably creative ideas," says Fayezul Choudhury, Controller and Vice President, Strategy and Resource Management.

The Bank once intended Development Marketplace for World Bank staff, but the competition evolved into a venue for social entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas.

Choudhury says the Bank wants to stimulate innovation and reward the best ideas with seed money.

He adds that the Bank can also help connect social entrepreneurs with the assistance they need to finance and implement their projects.

"If the project's need is organizational know-how, we may be able to connect it with non-governmental organizations that have good management skills. If it's funding, we may be able to connect them to the right sources."

The goal is to see good ideas acted on and expanded, Choudhury says.

Several winning DM projects have already been tried in more than one country.

One example is the Kanchan Arsenic Filter project, sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The project installed filters to remove arsenic and pathogens from drinking water in Nepal and has been expanded to Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

"In five years, I'd like to see a deeper Development Marketplace program that leverages prize-winning ideas that may have applicability either within a country or even globally," says Choudhury.

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