Washington D.C. December 4, 2003
– IFC-supported projects sponsored by NGO partners were among the winners today at the 2003 Development Marketplace, the World Bank Group’s annual innovation grant competition.
Praised last year in the
Harvard Business Review
as a cutting-edge way of sparking effective new approaches to poverty reduction, the Development Marketplace (DM) is a World Bank program that promotes innovative development ideas through early stage seed funding. It aims to link social entrepreneurs with good ideas to partners who have the resources to help them implement their vision. Since 1998, the Development Marketplace has awarded more than $16 million to over 330 groundbreaking projects. This year, more than $4 million were awarded to 40 entrepreneurs with creative development ideas, with $200,000 of the funding contributed by IFC.
The winners included:
Digital Divide Data (DDD)
a Cambodian information technology initiative that provides good-paying jobs, training, and health and education benefits to 115 young workers from the country’s most disadvantaged groups—polio and landmine victims, abused women, rural migrants, and orphans. DDD (
www.digitaldividedata.com
) was founded in 2001 by two former McKinsey and Co. consultants to provide outsourced data entry services for foreign and domestic clients. Working with strong support from the Phnom Penh office of IFC’s Mekong Private Sector Development Facility, it has built a stable labor force and cumulative revenues of more than $300,000, providing economic opportunities for target populations that would otherwise be marginalized. DDD won $107,813 in funding at the Development Marketplace to support expansion into new countries.
“The Development Marketplace Award is an important recognition of the work that DDD has been doing in partnership with the donor community, ” said Jeremy Hockenstein, co-founder of DDD. “We have a strong belief that I know IFC shares. It is that some of the poorest people in the world can quickly enjoy the benefits of full integration with the global economy if given the job opportunity and training.”
“Investing in the capacity building of grassroots partnerships that reach the poorest via commercially sound, market-based approaches is an important part of our SME strategy, and DDD is a good example of positive change achieved from the partnership,” said Harold Rosen, director of the World Bank Group SME Department. “Although small, its impact on the lives of the poor people is large, and we are glad to have supported it at its relatively early stage.”
Dress for Development and Success.
In Bolivia, it is difficult for skilled, low-income women to access foreign markets. Over a period of five years, the project sponsors, Dress for Development Advisory Group and the Asociacion de Mujeres Artesanas (AMAR) will set in place a job creation strategy that is expected to create approximately 250 jobs in the garment business.
The Development Marketplace prize of $92,187 will go towards creating a center, which will be unique in Bolivia, with hands-on training and a variety of programs to educate future exporters and craft-makers how to build a successful business, while at the same time providing machines for mentors and trainees to produce high quality garments.
Fly-fishing for Biodiversity Conservation.
The Taimen Conservation Fund, a
Mongolian NGO, will develop a financially sustainable conservation management system to protect a threatened fish species, hucho taimen, and the rich biodiversity of its environment, while providing a sustainable source of income to local nomadic communities in northern Mongolia.
The Taimen Conservation Fund was established with the support of Sweetwater Travel, one of the leading U.S. international-destination fly-fishing outfitters, and its local partner, Hovsgol Travel. These firms are working closely with IFC, two locally based NGOs, and local communities to develop a system that will complement traditional practices of the area’s nomadic communities. Traditional Buddhist beliefs in Mongolia preclude using fish for subsistence or commercial consumption, but catch-and-release fishing allows the investment to maintain traditions while promoting a low-impact form of tourism.
“Preservation of the Eg-Uur watershed will enable conservation-oriented fly-fishing companies such as Sweetwater and Hovsgol Travel to continue to use the natural resources of nomadic communities in sustainable and culturally acceptable ways,” said Dan Vermillion, president of Sweetwater Travel.
"We are helping local communities in a remote, underdeveloped region of Asia manage their natural resources in ways that are both culturally and environmentally sensible and economically feasible to them," said Gavin Murray, director of IFC’s Environment and Social Development department.
Ha Tien - Habitats and Handbags.
The Ha Tien plain in the southwest corner of Vietnam supports a mosaic of grassland, wetland, and limestone ecosystems that are being destroyed due to increased shrimp farming and subsistence rice farming. Helping local communities make the transition to sustainable development is the overarching objective of the Ha Tien project, which will introduce sustainable harvesting techniques, conserve grasslands, and maintain the refuge of the sarus crane, an important symbol to the Buddhist Khmer people. Project partners include IFC, the International Crane Foundation, and Holcim Vietnam. dentified as one of two remaining remnant areas of grassland with high biodiversity and conservation value, the Phu My provides an economic base to the Khmer minority who inhabit the area and harvest its grasses to produce woven goods.
Skills training will ensure that the currently produced low-value woven products can be crafted into higher-value goods, such as handbags, and will help local people redirect these products toward the burgeoning tourist markets in Ho Chi Minh City. Improved sustainable harvesting techniques, investment in skills training, and access to tourist markets are expected to result in doubling of household incomes.
“The Development Marketplace award provides us with the ability to demonstrate what we believe will be a compelling 'triple bottom line' - increasing incomes in the Phu My community, empowering a minority group (the Khmer) and safeguarding the last remaining ecosystem of its kind in the Mekong Delta.” said Dr. Tran Triet, South East Asian Representative of the International Crane Foundation.
POEMA (Poverty and Environment in the Amazon).
A project to create economic opportunities for poor communities in Brazil’s Para State by using the resources of the Amazon rainforest while simultaneously helping to preserve it. This project will establish a “productive chain” to produce art paper and craft products, by combining Japanese paper-making techniques with traditional Amazon fiber and dye processing techniques.
POEMA is an existing IFC partner, currently working with SME Capacity Building Facility support to widen the impact of its existing project to sell rain-forest friendly natural products to Daimler Chrysler for use in cushions, sun visors, mats and other Mercedes-Benz components.
Today’s announcement added to the list of previous IFC-supported winners of the Development Marketplace (DM) including:
Honey Care Africa/ Africa Now
, 2002 DM winner, is a Kenyan small business/NGO partnership enabling more than 2,500 subsistence farmers to become profitable, honey producing beekeepers.
FATE Foundation
, 2001 DM winner, established by Nigeria’s business leaders seeking to helping promising young entrepreneurs create successful companies, offering a combination of training, mentoring and financial support. It is considered to be one of Africa’s most successful models of entrepreneurship development.
The Poison Dart Frog Project
, 2002 Innovation Marketplace winner, is an innovative frog-exporting business in the rainforests of Peru. IFC and a local partner are helping promote sustainable cultivation of poison-dart frogs for export to help rural communities generate income and earn a better living by conserving the forest rather than cutting it down.
This year’s competition finalists, selected from more than 2,700 applications, represent new approaches in different fields, including biodiversity conservation, HIV/AIDS prevention, education, small and medium enterprise (SME) development, rural development, health, energy, and more. Considered a “different way of doing business” at the World Bank where the competition process
emulates a private sector approach to
innovative project financing, the Development Marketplace (DM) was launched in 1998 as a recognition that solutions to development challenges can have small beginnings, and are often found by those living closest to local problems.
IFC's mission is to promote sustainable private sector investment in developing countries, helping to reduce poverty and improve people's lives. IFC finances private sector investments in the developing world, mobilizes capital in the international financial markets, helps clients improve social and environmental sustainability, and provides technical assistance and advice to governments and businesses. From its founding in 1956 through FY03, IFC has committed more than $37 billion of its own funds and arranged $22 billion in syndications for 2,990 companies in 140 developing countries. IFC's worldwide committed portfolio as of FY03 was $16.8 billion for its own account and $6.6 billion held for participants in loan syndications.
