Blogs

This is my first blogging experience.  While I have facility with technology, and I read political blogs, I have never felt compelled to share my thoughts out on the world-wide web as a younger generation does. However, I am excited that I am tip-toeing into the blogging world in the context of the activities of the Development Marketplace.  This is an exciting window that the World Bank (with several partners) has established over the last several years to support innovation in hundreds of places around the world.  I am happy that the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is associated with this effort.  From my perspective, the problem of global commons presents an interesting challenge for humanity.  We still have millions of fellow human beings who do not have the basic necessities to lead a decent life.  How can we go about creating goods and services to improve the quality of life of the poor without increasing the pressure on our local, regional and global environments?  How do we begin to create a disconnect between increasing provision of goods and services and the natural resource base?

I’ve been reflecting on further lessons learned from our project that I could share with everyone. I’ve come up a number and they’re all interlinked. The first is that inevitably when you’re implementing innovative projects in complex contexts, you’re going to need to work with partners. It is rare that a project will be operating in such isolation that there are no partners you could use to help you – you should always use partners with specific expertise to help you think outside the box but most importantly, to help you during implementation. It’s tough to do everything on your own. Secondly, choosing your partners is a very – very - important part of the process. As a DM winner, by definition, your project is innovative and will face challenges during implementation. As you’re facing those challenges, you need to be sure that your partners are there beside you, working hard for the same goal and not running away when it’s too tough.

Among the visitors to 2008 Global Development Marketplace: Sustainable Agriculture for Development today was World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.

He's shown here with competition team winner Hannes  Dempewolf of the University of British Columbia, who is part of  Bioversity International's $200,000 project in Trinidad and Tobago that will use cutting-edge genomics "to identify and distinguish rare cocoa cultivars from ordinary beans."

The beneficiaries will be subsistence farmers who will sell their enhanced beans to discriminating consumers at premium prices.  

Twenty-two project winners collected their crystal awards and grant checks in the 2008 Global Development Marketplace: Sustainable Agriculture for Development competition this morning.

The winners came from Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.  India, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Cambodia, and Vietnam were each the home of two award winners.  Altogether, 15 countries and Sub-Saharan Africa as a region were represented. 

The projects that made the final cut -- from 1,800 applications that were winnowed down to 100 from 42 countries -- promise to deliver a number of objectives and innovations to increase agricultural productivity, give farmers more land rights and link them to global markets, and, overall, reduce the deep poverty of rural regions in developing countries.

Among the 22 winning projects in the DM2008 competition was Agricultural Cooperatives for Biodiversity Conservation in Cambodia, and collecting the award were Enterprise Planner Adviser Karen Nielsen and Technical Adviser Tom Clements (in photo).

"W'e're quite excited about having our project recognized as one of the more innovative ones," said Nielsen, clutching her team's award.

Under the project, "Wildlife-friendly" products grown in conservation-protected areas in Cambodia will be marketed nationally, including at tourism centers, by cooperatives in 10 villages.

The $100,000 project is sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society through its Cambodia Program.

Subhas Managuli made it to the finalists' circle, buthis Best Practices Foundation proposal to improve livestock health for 2,000 small farmers in 20 villages in India didn't make the final cut that produced the 22 winners who were announced Friday morning.

"The idea is good, and I'll try to pitch it to other agencies," Managuli said as the closing ceremony wound up in the Atrium.  "I'm not going to give up. Absolutely."

While their booths were temporarily closed during the exhibition, finalists, along with development community representatives, participated in Knowledge Exchange technical assistance workshops -- like this one on capacity building.

Three DM2008 jurors who are past grant winners are sharing their well-learned lessons with the hundred finalists.

Take 2006 winner Florence Cassassuce (in photo at right), who brought her water-purifying UV-light bucket to 900 villagers on the rural outskirts of La Paz in Baja California, Mexcio. Cassassuce, implementing her project with the advice of World Bank Senior Environmental Specialist Ricardo Hernandez Murillo, installed 3,500 buckets toward the goal of 6,00, ahead of schedule. But the original buckets didn't always work well, especially in the field, and improvements had to be made with better, and faster, plastic-injection manufacturing.

Cassassuce said her team learned three lessons implementing their award-winning clean-water project:

As the recently named Director of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department -- one of DM2008's funders --Juergen Voegele is leading a vigorous effort to re-energize and broaden the World Bank's commitment to agricultural development. During his peripatetic rounds of the competition, Voegele sat down for this mini-interview:

Q. What are your impressions of what you see on the floor of the exhibition?