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Innovation Needs More Than Money to Succeed

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Sat, 11/21/2009 - 10:07
Innovative adaptation projects, like those featured at DM2009, hold enormous potential for blunting the adverse impact of climate change in developing countries, while also helping to reduce poverty and build social value.  But to achieve their potential, these projects have to be scaled.  Money is important for projects to get beyond their early or seed stage.  But money alone isn't enough -- as already succcessful project leaders emphasized at the Nov. 12 DM2009 panel "Taking an Idea to Scale" (photo at right: panelist Anne Marie Moeller of Humana People to People India).  To succeed, panelists emphasized, innovative projects also have to be firmly planted within their communities, understand local needs, find partners with whom they develop solid cooperation, and be supported with staff who are both dedicated and skilled.
 
To help put all the pieces together and effectively link adaptation to development on a scale of broad replication, the World Bank Institute is, among other things, reshaping itself as a "knowledge broker" that connects projects with the right people and institutions within the development community as well as with governments.  Aleem Walji, the WBI's new Innovation Practice Manager, talks about this in his mini-interview below, as well as in his introduction to the "Taking an Idea to Scale" panel (video link above).  There are more details in this WBI statement about the the new strategy under Institute Vice President Sanjay Pradhan.

 

Blogs, Other Sites Follow the DM2009 Story

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 16:50

DM2009 has been drawing attention from climate-change-related and other blogs and websites around the world.  In "The Dirt," published by the American Society of Landscape Architects, web content and strategy manager Jared Green -- who was also a juror for the DM2009 competition --  published this post about some of the winning finalists. Green's post was picked up by the Sustainable Cities Collective blog.

Some of the attention came from abroad -- the site the Austrian Network for Information and Communication Technologies for Development and -- in France -- Actualités News environnement.

Climate-L, which is produced by an international team of climate change experts with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, published this article.

Words That Echoed Across DM2009 Competition

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Mon, 11/16/2009 - 08:33

“I came here thinking of my people.  I leave here thinking of our planet.”

That's how finalist winner Carlos Daniel Vecco Giove of Peru summed up what DM2009 meant for him.  (Vecco was honored for his proposal to aid the Amazonian indigenous populations in his country in adapting to rapid climate change.)

Vecco's stirring words echoed around the floor of the competition, on up to the podium during the Friday, Nov. 13, awards ceremony, where a rapt audience heard Warren Evans, Environment Director of the World Bank, say: "Let me share with you what I heard that one of our finalists who traveled here from far away said this week."

One way or another, the other finalists expressed the same thought -- if not in so many words, then in the potential for their projects to bring innovative but practical climate adaptation not only to their target community but to people and places across regions and countries...to the whole planet.

High and Low, Climate Change Imperils Latin America and Caribbean

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Thu, 11/12/2009 - 15:19

From mangrove forests to the Amazon Basin to the High Andes, Latin America and the Caribbean are threatened by climate change.  And so are Indigenous Peoples who live in these sensitive environments.Katrina Quisumbing King and Alejandro Argumedo

So it's not that surprising, perhaps, that of the 100 finalists in DM2009, 39 come from Latin American and Caribbean countries -- 12 from Peru alone.

One of the Peru projects seeks to "blend Western science and indigenous knowledge systems [and] know-how" to help bring buen vivir (good living) to the indigenous community of Potato Park in the High Andes through the development of new tuber varieties resistant to extreme climate conditions.

"Extreme conditions are showing up more often with more force throughout the region," said Alejandro Argumedo, director of the Association ANDES project (in photo at left above with researcher Katrina Quisumbing King).  "With global warming we are seeing the emergence of a new climate, and it's coming very fast."

In Belize, "the impact of climate change is exacerbated by a combination of deforestation and tourism that is shrinking the mangrove forests that act as a sponge against storm-caused flooding," said Gregory Ch'oc, executive director of Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (in photo at right above with technical coordinator Lynette Gomez).  The indigenous communities of this ecoystem are heavily impacted by the natural and manmade forces of destruction. Ch'oc's group seeks to help one hard hit indigenous district with community-based solutions for forest management that would begin with an inventory of the flora at risk.

No Empty Chairs, Please...

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 19:01

It's very important for all finalists to be at their booths by 10 o'clock Wednesday morning.  That's when the jurors will begin making their rounds and continue until 3 in the afternoon.

The jurors will go round in pairs.  Each finalist will be interviewed twice.

So, set your alarm, grab that coffee, or tea, or whatever, and get yourself to your booth on time.

And knock out those jurors.  They'll want to know all the technical stuff behind your project, but they'll be looking for your passion, too.  Show it!

 

Extreme Weather Snarls Some DM2009 Finalists' Trips

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 17:05

Hurricanes, typhoons, and flooding -- some of the extreme weather conditions that the finalists tackled in their projects -- upset the plans of several international competitors to come to the DM2009 competition in Washington.

The longest delay was encountered by Nidia Matamoros (photo at left), a member of the Miskito indigenous group in Nicaragua, whose home was flooded by Hurricane Ida.  From start to finish, Matamoros logged 102 hours from the time the first leg of her flight was originally scheduled to leave Managua's airport -- Nov. 5 -- to her arrival at Reagan Washington National Airport at 1 a.m. Monday morning, Nov. 9.

'I'm proud, I'm excited, I'm happy," Matamoros said at the orientation session that opened the four-day DM2009 program Monday afternoon.  "This is the first time the Miskito communities have participated so fully in such an event."

Summing up her marathon journey, Matamoros said, "It's too much.  I need a siesta."

The project she's working would would establish Maya Nut "food forests" in Miskito communities to produce up to 5 million pounds of food worth US$3 million to improve the nutrition of as many as 2,500 Miskito children.  It would also restore wild game, including deer and fish, and protect 30 miles of rivers from flooding and erosion.

* * *

Philippines finalist Eugenio Manalo decided not to accompany his project's team to Washington so he could stay behind and work on relief for those hit by four typhoons in the late summer and early fall that caused extensive flooding and loss of life.

Belize finalist Lisel Alamilla, facing poor road conditions in the southern part of her country, had to arrange for a flight via a chartered single-engine Cessna from Punta Gorda to Belize City's airport to get her connecting flight to Miami.  She produced a handwritten receipt for reimbursement.

 

Where the Finalists Put Their Focus

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Sun, 11/08/2009 - 08:48

The DM2009 competition has three sub-themes:

  • Resilience of Indigenous Peoples Communities to Climate Risks.
  • Climate Risk Management with Multiple Benefits.
  • Climate Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management.

This is how the finalists' projects break down by sub-theme:

Latin Indigenous Peoples Hard Hit by Climate Change

Submitted by Tom Grubisich on Sat, 11/07/2009 - 08:19

Some 28 million members of Indigenous Peoples live in Latin America, many of them in poverty and prone to flooding and other weather extremes caused or exacerbated by climate change.  A number of finalist projects aim to give Indigenous Peoples in Latin America a cushion against weather extremes.

Here's a sampling of the projects:

In Mexico, ITESM at Tecnologico de Monterrey seeks "to help people from Tutuaca, Otachique, and Conoachi communities in Chihuahua through a biocultural rescuing program to maintain native maize genetic diversity facing climate change needs, including validation and verification mechanisms to preserve their diverse maize races."

In Peru, an organization of women from four communities in the High Andean region proposes "to recover ancestral knowledge and techniques to mitigate the effects of cold spells, reducing the vulnerability of 2,758 comuneros belonging to 551 families in the district of Palca."

In El Savador, Instituto para en Rescate Ancestral Indigena Salvadoreno  (RAIS) seeks to "recover, divulge, and make people aware of the knowledge of 100 wise indigenous women regarding the properties and interpretation of the language of both climate and earth as a support tool to prevent climate-change risks."