23 January 2008
Development Marketplace (DM) is a competitive grant program administered by the World Bank and supported by various partners that identifies and funds innovative, early-stage projects with high potential for development impact. Incubators and/or their client companies are eligible to apply, as long as they are partners with a local organization.
This competition offers a unique opportunity to turn your innovative idea for sustainable agriculture in developing countries into reality. DM competitions held at the global, regional and country level attract ideas from a range of innovators including civil society groups, entrepreneurs, academia and business. DM has awarded more than $46 million in grants, supporting projects through their proof of concept phase. If selected, your idea could receive up to US$200,000 in grant funding for implementation over two years. Using DM as a financial launching pad, a large number of projects go to scale up or replicate elsewhere, winning prestigious awards within the sphere of social entrepreneurship.
The deadline for proposals for the DM2008 competition is March 21, 2008! Read more about DM2008 competition and guidelines here.
For the DM2008 competition, proposals must address one of the following three sub-themes:
1. Linking Small-Scale Farmers to Input-Output Markets, primarily for:
(i) financial and business development services that expand opportunities for more efficient technology adoption and resource allocation by small-scale producers and market agents;
(ii) effective producer organizations that can reduce transaction costs and improve efficiency in the marketing chain;
(iii) innovations that improve the access of small-scale producers and market agents to transport services, physical markets, telecommunications and electricity in ways that improve supply chain logistics; and
(iv) improved sourcing and selling arrangements such as contract farming that will increase access to more lucrative value chains.
2. Improving Land Access and Tenure for the Poor
(i) legal aid/awareness campaigns and increasing access to records of land and aquatic rights through private-public partnerships to enhance transparency and reduce corruption;
(ii) local resource mapping and registration to develop and codify arrangements for effective use of common property resources in a way that benefits the poor;
(iii) decentralized settlement of conflicting land claims in post-conflict settings;
(iv) local negotiation to allow regularization of existing occupation by marginal or poor populations or access to land through implementation of reform legislation for land and aquatic rights, or through land markets; and
(v) technical and other support to enable those received land through such mechanisms to make the most productive use of it.
3. Promoting the Environmental Services of Agriculture in Addressing Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation
(i) development and production of sustainable biofuels;
(ii) methods to scale up payments to ecosystem services;
(iii) increased local incentives and benefits to the poor in payment for environmental services schemes;
(iv) enhancement of community-level adaptation to climate change in rural areas;
(v) reducing the contribution of agriculture and fisheries to greenhouse gases; and
(vi) sustainable use and promotion of biodiversity at the local level.