Edith Wilson's blog

I asked New York Times op-ed columnist Tom Friedman to come see our "100 ideas to save the planet" at last week's DM2009 competition.  His response was he was on his way to the Amazon, where climate change is accelerating the despoiling of that vast ecosystem and driving its indigenous communities into more povery.  A number of DM200 finalist projects from Latin American would attack those ravages.

In his column today, Friedman says bluntly: "My argument is simple: I think climate change is real. You don’t? That’s your business. But there are two other huge trends barreling down on us with energy implications that you simply can’t deny."

For more, here's the column.

For so long, it's been hard to get conventional media to cover Development Marketplace.  Don't get me wrong, there has been some wonderful coverage over the 10 years we have been doing this.  But let's face it, these projects from developing countries are small. That's the whole point of DevMarketplace -- we want to find really creative, important ideas when they are small so we can help them grow.  So it's been really hard to get the BBC or the New York Times to do big stories. 

Flash forward 10 years, and the social media troops are coming to the rescue -- or should I say swarming?  Thank you all!  The bloggers, tweeters, and social networks are discovering us and lifting us like a wave.  Just today, one of the big bloggers on climate change, Bill Hewitt, at the Climate Change blog of the Foreign Policy Association found us and we were so excited to hear what Bill had posted about the competition (reproduced above).  He loved it -- because as he points out, living with climate change is going to take lots more solutions from the local level and we need this kind of program to find them.   And since you know we love our YouTube channel and our Flips, here's the moment when we found what Bill had posted about us! 

Ideas welcome on how we can do more to help all these 100 ideas get the audience they deserve -- and how we get them to the people who need them in China, India, Brazil, and many other countries dealing with the same difficult challenges of a changing climate.

The ninth annual Development Marketplace Global Competition takes place in the midst of international debate and negotiation about how to mitigate the causes and adapt to the impacts of climate change.   The event is an integral part of the efforts on climate change within the World Bank Group and complements the Pilot Program on Climate Resilience, part of the Climate Investment Funds operated by the multilateral development banks.

The banner that's been unfurled across the facade of the World Bank's Main Complex in Washington, D.C., where DM2009 will be held Nov. 10-13, tells the story.  Are you registered?

From Kathy Sierra, Vice President of the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network, and Sanjay Pradhan, Vice President of the World Bank Institute, comes this welcome to DM2009 finalists:

Development Marketplace 2009 couldn't have a more timely or significant theme: “100 Ideas to Save the Planet and its people from the effects of a changing climate.”