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  • Not Just Outside the Box, But Without a Box: World Bank’s Marketplace Finalists

    May 22, 2007 By Gib Clarke
    The finalists of the World Bank‘s annual Development Marketplace competition are presenting their winning projects this week in Washington, DC. Overall, 2,500 proposals were submitted on population, health, and nutrition, and the final 104 projects—hailing from 42 countries around the world—will be on display for all to see on May 22 and 23.

    The Development Marketplace is sort of a micro-version of the Gates Foundation-sponsored Grand Challenge Initiative, in that it provides funding to non-traditional projects that would otherwise not be funded because they fall outside the development community’s comfort level. Innovative projects are something of a double-edged sword—funders tend to be turned off by their uniqueness; yet if successful, these projects could serve as useful models in other development settings.

    The finalists’ projects range from selling soap to buy medicine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to using farm animals to distract malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the Philippines, to promoting healthy sexual behavior by teaching DJs to mix “Sounds of Life” samples into their performances.

    I was thrilled to participate as a judge in this competition. It was exciting to see so many novel ideas, from creative recycling of garbage to board games used to teach reproductive health. Choosing certain projects to advance to the next round was difficult, given the wide array of problems they were addressing. In the end, the projects that made it to this last round share a few characteristics – creativity, small-scale, and potential for replication in a variety of settings. Hopefully these new, small, non-traditional projects will help us solve the old, large, traditional problems.

    World Bank staff have created their own blog for the Development Marketplace. Judges, attendees, contestants—and interested readers—are encouraged to comment. They will be updating the blog with stories about the projects throughout the two day competition.
    Topics: development, population
    • http://www.blogger.com/profile/02655639341634700359 Julie Doherty

      I was pleased to discover that this year’s development marketplace focused on health, nutrition, and population. The projects presented in the marketplace were interesting and I enjoyed interacting with the finalists. My personal favorites included: a project which encourages villagers in the Philippines to trade in recyclable materials from the polluted areas surrounding their houses for health supplies; an attachment for motorized vehicles which reduces emissions and fuel consumption on the 2-stroke in the Philippines; and an innovative needle exchange program in the Kyrgyz Republic that penetrates the risk group by training intravenous drug users to distribute local pharmacy needle exchange vouchers in their communities.

      However, I was struck with how similar many of the projects were. For a competition that encourages innovation, I expected far fewer similar projects.

      I walked away from the day thinking that, based on the evidence presented, it is unfortunate that many of these programs haven’t already been implemented… especially given the widespread need, apparent in the repetition of projects.

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