50 finalist projects from all around India are setting up their tents, the World Bank India Country Office staff is scrambling to make last touches and the buzz is unlike any other Sunday: the second India Development Marketplace event is getting ready for official launch tomorrow, Monday 28, 2007 with the President of India, Dr. A.P.L. Abdul Kalam cutting the red ribbon. This blog will cover the two day event live from the ground, and tell the stories of the 50 social innovators who will compete to be among the 20 winners to receive US$20,000 each. This way, we hope to share the DM experience with everyone.
So if you have been involved in the IDM 2007, as an applicant, as a finalist or as an organizer, or have an opinion about it, we invite you to contribute to our blog. Be heard, and help us fulfill one of DM program’s core objective of sharing information.
Mon, 05/28/2007 - 03:10
I was one of the first round assessors for the IDM2007 proposals. While sifting through the 100 odd proposals that I saw, barring a few, the majority seemed to have come from a milieu of people who can be deemed as ordinary citizens - some in partnership with NGOs and other charitable organizations - and some as individuals. However, it was quite refreshing to see so many people interested in tackling development issues challenging India. Some innovative approaches, a lot of proven methods to be deployed at remote locations - where resources are scare, and reach even more so - there seemed to be a commonality in almost all proposls.
People recognize the development issues, however, getting political will, infrastructure, resources and community participation - in a single file with a singular purpose seems like a daunting task.
Many of the proposals lack scalability or replicability, some will face bureaucratic red-tape, some would wither away while walking in the baking sun, slushy neighbourhoods and polluted waterways.
What seems to be a genuine lack in most ideas - is the full force of a "professionally driven organization" which would have performance indices and benchmarks on critical success factors for completion of a project, an objective or even a milestone; and remuneration for the workers commensurate with their corporate world brethren.
So, the question really is - while governments, socially responsible citizens and NGOs struggle to cope up with development issues - when will Corporate India wake up to the development charter - and take projects up as a "revenue-generating exercise" - professionally run and managed. Currently Corproate India seems to be content with the smattering of "Corporate Social Responsiblity" (CSR) to a certain extent.
Bottomline Corporate India is interested in bottomline and topline growth, and public image enhancement. Is there a mechanism where these objectives can be met whilst tackling a development issue in India?