New and Noteworthy

DM is pleased to announce the winners of its first Photography Contest, which received dozens of striking, original images that capture successful implementation of DM-funded projects!

Three projects won a week of technical assistance paid for by the DM program tailored to their particular needs. The winning images, which also include 10 Honorable Mention prizes, will be displayed in an exhibition at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. during May 2007 and featured at the 2007 Global Development Marketplace, May 22-23.

The top three places go to:

• Training African Rats as a Cheap Diagnostic Tool (Tanzania, DM2003)
• Ha Tien - Handbags - Habitats (Vietnam, DM2003)
• Protecting the Environment: Profiting from Garbage (Burkina Faso, DM2003)

Ten entries received an Honorable Mention:

• The WaterPyramid Local Water Factory (The Gambia, DM2006)
• Musseling in on Pollution (China, DM2006)

• Community Empowerment and Fynbos Conservation (South Africa, DM2003)

• Community Carbon Collectors: Briquetting (Kenya, DM2005)

• Solar Tuki (Nepal, DM2005)

• Scojo: Low-Cost Reading Glasses for the Poor (India, DM2003)

• From Kiln Efficiency to Lead-Free Pottery (Mexico, DM2005)

• Fences for Fuel in Virat Nagar Bloc, Jaipur (India, DM2006)
• Rental Service for Electricity in Remote Villages (Lao PDR, DM2005)

A panel of six experts in photography and development judged the contest, including staff from National Geographic Society and the World Bank. Click  hereto review the contest guidelines.

Registration for DM2007 to Open Soon

The 2007 Global Development Marketplace competition is around the corner! Online registration for the event -- which will bring together 104 innovative projects from 42 countries to vie for a share of the $4 million award pool --opens in late April.

• Projects will showcase their ideas in a trade fair setting.
• General public are invited to attend and cast their vote for the People's Choice Award.
• Winners will be announced at a closing ceremony on May 23.
• Images from the Development Marketplace’s first photography contest will be exhibited.

Click here to see a list of finalists.

Past DM Winners News

Vietnam Project Wins Prestigeous Improved Living Award

Ha Tien - Habitats and Handbags, a DM2003 winner, received on March 28 the Dubai International Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment for its wetland conservation project in Phu My, Vietnam.

Making bags for export.

The project, which won $102,750 at the 2003 Development Marketplace, trained 150 villagers in using lepironia in making hats, handbags and storage bins. The team also assisted the community in marketing and selling their products to tourists and higher-value export markets, while employing 32-full time workers. The daily income of those involved with the project has risen to $1.86 – three times higher than before.

“This is perhaps the first project in Vietnam that combines nature conservation, poverty alleviation and culture preservation,” said Tran Triet of the International Crane Foundation, which is carrying out the project along with the International Finance Corporation. “We hope that this kind of project can be applied elsewhere in Vietnam as well as in other developing countries.”

Ha Tien is also a finalist for the 2007 Equator Prize, a United Nations Development Program sponsored initiative that raises the profile of grassroots efforts to reduce poverty through biodiversity conservation.

This month, the project became one of the top three winners of the DM's first photography contest. Click here to see the winning entry.

Project Spotlight

UV Buckets Bring Clear Water to Poor Families in Mexico

LA PAZ, Mexico – A water truck bumps along the dusty, unpaved road leading to the outskirts of this Baja California city, where some 900 people live in homes made of tin roofs, cardboard, random bits of cement and plastic sheeting. The truck – this community’s only source of water – comes every 8 days.

During the dry season, in the summer, sometimes it skips a visit. But even when the truck comes, its water is contaminated and causes serious health problems, especially among children.

“Diarrhea, stomach pains, skin infections,” Cervando Gomez Lopez lists as some of the problems his family members have had over the nine years they have lived here.

“Water has been a big problem,” he says.

But there is now an improvement, as the Lopez family is one of the recipients of an affordable, effective water filtering system provided through a Development Marketplace-funded project.

Developed by a French engineer, Florence Cassassuce, the UV bucket is just that: a 15-liter plastic bucket that contains a chamber with a UV light, which kills bacteria as the water flows through it. In 4 minutes, a family can purify enough water to last it a few days.

“Almost 90 percent of the wells in Baja are contaminated,” said Cassassuce, who worked with a team of University of California at Berkley engineers and scientists who tested water quality in Baja. “The story with one family after another was the same. They would say ‘We need an easy way to disinfect water’.”

Cassassuce’s project won $170,310  at the 2006 Development Marketplace competition. It aims to make and distribute as many as 12,000 UV buckets to poor families throughout Baja California by late 2008.

The early recipients report consistent use.

“I have it here, covered so it doesn’t get dusty,” said Amelia Salvatierra Romero. Her family received the bucket in January. Since then it has been re-filled two or three times weekly. Romero bottles the water and keeps it in the fridge.

About 500 buckets are being distributed throughout Baja and another few are tested in a rural community in Guatemala, where the water situation is vastly different. Cassassuce said her goal for the two years of the DM project is to collect as many observations as possible from different settings, so that the technology and be perfected and the way to replication would be laid out clearly.

“I wanted to make something that is not too heavy and easy to transport,” she said. “And the technology is very adaptable. If another level of filtration was required, like sand filtration, we can just add another chamber to the bucket and the water would be clean. The design is modular.”

The project has gained traction with Mexican water officials: Cassassuce is about to start receiving two thirds of the production costs from the National Water Commission and Baja’s state water entity.

“We are very thankful for this, because water is a big problem for us,” said Catalina Verdugo, Lopez’ wife. “During shortages, sometimes we completely run out. We don’t have piped water here, and many families don’t have covered wells. So the kids drink dirty, contaminated water.”

Bottled water is the simplest solution, but most families in areas like Colonia Marquez are too poor to afford it. Many are migrants from other states, lured to Baja by the promise of a tourism job that does not materialize.

Verdugo, who is the volunteer president of her community, says the UV bucket is particularly helpful when she hosts community meetings. Many mothers bring their small children, who inevitably get thirsty. She then tells the mothers about the new filtration system. Interest in the community is growing, with 50 new requests for a UV bucket in this community alone.

DM Events

Mexico Development Marketplace Awards 15 Projects

Forty projects vied for awards at the 2007 Mexico Development Marketplace, held in the country’s capital on March 30. Themed "Youth for a Mexico Without Poverty," the competition brought together representatives from academia, the private sector, non-profit groups, the diplomatic corps and various Mexican government agencies.

Eight innovative projects walked away with $20,000 grants and seven others

Transparency International's Mexico chapter, a partner in the 2007 Mexico competition, used the event as a venue to launch its new web-based database outlining youth development efforts throughout Mexico. Available at www.ideasjovenes.org.mx, this site lists all projects by subject and geographic region and provides contact details for the project leaders.

"I think this will be an incredibly useful tool for youth in development," said Javier Osorio, task team leader for the Mexico DM.

Jurors interview Alexander Ruiz Euler at the Mexico DM, March 30, 2007. Euler later became one of the competition's 15 winners.

The competition was hosted by the Autonomous National University of Mexico, or UNAM, in the courtyard of its Economics Faculty. Hundreds of students and professors walked through the booths and interacted with the project coordinators.

Among the projects were ideas to improve sexual education among indigenous youth, produce highly nutritious ham made of rabbit meat, manufacture and distribute a water filtration technology packaged as a new piece of furniture and a monitor the implementation of a large rural infrastructure project.

The World Bank contributed the bulk of the awards with $135,000. The competition also drew four external awards of $20,000: one from the Swiss Embassy, one from Mexico’s Institute for Public Information and two from Coca-Cola.

For more information on the event, visit www.bancomundial.org.mx and follow the links to the 2007 Mexico Development Marketplace.

Ecuador, Mongolia Launch DM Competitions

Ecuador and Mongolia launched their first ever Development Marketplace (DM) competitions in March.

In Ecuador, the World Bank is working with the United Nations Population Fund and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Open through April 20, the call for proposals seeks initiatives supporting youth engagement in productive activities and civic participation. Special consideration will be given to projects that fit certain sub-topics such as the environment and youth with disabilities. The Marketplace is scheduled for June. Visit www.feriadeldesarrollo.ec for more information.

Mongolia’s first DM is scheduled for September. Themed "Services to Poor and Vulnerable Groups Through Innovation," the competition is open through May 31 to projects focused on education, health, water and sanitation, energy and the environment and information communication technology as a tool to providing better services to the poor. Grant sizes will range between $5,000 and $10,000. For more information, visit http://www.worldbank.org.mn

Spring and summer of 2007 are a busy time for country-level Development Marketplace competitions. Check out the upcoming events list for more information.

Fast Fact

Indoor air pollution is the 8th most important risk factor and responsible for 2.7 percent of the global burden of disease. Globally, indoor air pollution is a bigger problem than outdoor pollution. Solid fuel use alone causes 1.6 million deaths from pneumonia, chronic respiratory disease and lung cancer. In high-mortality developing countries, indoor smoke is responsible for an estimated 3.7 percent of the overall disease burden, making it the most lethal killer after malnutrition, unsafe sex and lack of safe water and sanitation.

SOURCE: World Health Organization