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This blog is hosted by the Development Marketplace. It is a platform for debate and knowledge sharing on early stage development, innovation and social entrepreneurship. More »

Social Development

2011 - The Democratization of the Social Entrepreneurship Movement?

Submitted by Jill Richmond on Thu, 02/02/2012 - 13:02

We begin 2012 with an overview of key developments in social entrepreneurship in 2011. As we scan the landscape we note four key findings of 2011 as the field continues to mature. The underlying trends continue to point to the idea that everyone can be responsible for advancing change and impact. This is manifested in the way we are seeing a continued democratization of the movement, a growing emergence of a new demographic of changemakers and discovery that collaboration and peer-to-peer networks continues to be on the rise.


1. An Uptick in Blended Funding Solutions for Social Entrepreneurs


Fact: Social enterprises (SEs) simply cannot be carried by a single source of funding. They need to look at different ways of blending capital to create the largest social impact. SEs are becoming more resourceful in the way they seek funding, and some of the most successful enterprises are using a range of capital sources: seed funding and impact investments, to government grants and CSR funds.

Social Entrepreneurship in Egypt: Challenges and Opportunities

Submitted by Myra Valenzuela on Mon, 12/12/2011 - 15:51

This is the first of many multi-lingual blog post to come. It will appear in both English and Arabic.

Abduallah Abdel Qassim, 47, partner in aluminum shop making window frames (World Bank Photo Collection)High rates of youth unemployment across the Middle East and North Africa were a major catalyst for the Arab Spring revolutions.   To help address this pressing issue, the Development Marketplace is preparing for a country-level competition in Egypt early next year. The proposed DM competition will focus on social entrepreneurs with projects that have a strong impact on creating sustainable job opportunities, especially for low-income and marginalized groups.  The main focus of the Egypt DM will be on supporting projects in the agricultural supply chain sector.

In order to understand the bigger picture of social entrepreneurship in Egypt, I spoke with Ehaab Abdou, who recently joined the Development Marketplace team to develop the Egypt DM program. Prior to coming to the Bank Ehaab was an Ashoka Fellow and advisor for the Middle East Youth Initiative at Brookings.  For Ehaab, there are three main challenges facing social entrepreneurship in the MENA region and in Egypt in particular:

Unconventional Development – Supporting Home Grown Genius

Submitted by Aleem Walji on Thu, 12/01/2011 - 16:01

Villgro, one of the largest incubators and funders of social enterprises in India, is hosting its annual Unconvention from December 1-3. Unlike other platforms, this event attracts people at the intersection of innovation and social enterprise with a clear focus on social impact and generating replicable models. I will be presenting at a panel discussion on December 3rd called Mainstreaming Your Social Business.

At the World Bank, we realize that public goods cannot be provided exclusively by governments acting alone. Private actors have a clear role to play and not just commercial enterprises. In India as elsewhere, we’re seeing the emergence of enterprises that combine the passion of NGO’s with the efficiency of business to address government and market failures. This is an extremely exciting possibility for the Bank and for our client Governments to consider. How do we encourage these actors to complement the State and how do we harness innovations around public goods to better serve the poor? The Development Marketplace is but one of many programs we support to surface, support, and diffuse innovation. The role of the Bank’s Innovation Practice is to pay attention to what’s going on around us and use the convening power and resources of the Bank to shine a light on innovations in development and scale-up what works.  

Follow me @AlWalji. I’ll be posting on #devmarket, #Innovation,  #alchemix throughout the event.

From more on the Unconvention read the interview of Sucharita Kamath at Vilgro as she describes how the Unconvention will convene different players in the social enterprise ecosystem in India to achieve broad-based social impact.

This article was originally published on http://www.nextbillion.net/. NextBillion is a website and blog bringing together a community in the shared mission of development through enterprise.

Unconvention 2011 Hones in on Landing Top Socent Talent

Since its launch in 2011, Villgro has identified and assisted approximately 2,000 social innovators and positively impacted the lives of more than 360,000 people living in rural India. The organization's strength lies in finding innovators and entrepreneurs, providing skill, development and critical access to networks and other resources necessary to take their innovations to the marketplace. Critical to its continued success is the ability to connect with more homegrown geniuses just waiting to be discovered in every corner of India.

Only the sky is the limit!

Submitted by Beatriz Carranza on Wed, 07/20/2011 - 14:19

Photo: Beatriz Quispe Carranza in IndiaHello everybody!

My name is Beatriz, I am a social change-maker from Peru. In 2003, thanks to the Development Marketplace, a group of enthusiastic, passionate young people in Lima received funds to start the first Cybercafé for the blind in Peru. During the first year, more than 250 visually impaired were trained in word processing and E-Mail.


 In 2004, the World Bank invited us to Washington, to exchange lessons and experiences among other Latin American projects. Certainly, this opportunity was extremely beneficial to our project. Now, thanks to private sponsorship, our Cybercafé has become ATECNODIS, an NGO that promotes access to information and technology for the visually impaired.

Hybrid Value Chains – a Method for Solving Grand Challenges in Development?

Submitted by Kirsten Spainhower on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 12:13

Bill Drayton, Founder of AshokaIn mid-may Bill Drayton of Ashoka visited the World Bank to present his thinking on Hybrid Value Chains (HVC). In a recent article published in the Harvard Business Review, Drayton and Ashoka-colleague Valeria Budinich warned that “if you are not thinking about HVC collaboration, you’ll soon be guilty of strategy malpractice.” (Click here to view a recorded video of the event).


So what does Ashoka mean when they talk about HVC collaboration? The best way to illustrate is through an example.


In 2004, tackling the dismal living conditions in the slums of Gujarat, India, social entrepreneur Joshi Rajendra founded SAATH, an organization that has developed an innovative and integrative approach to development, and is focused on equipping residents of poor urban settlements to become willing customers of basic services and access schemes. The program was rooted in the belief that the poor would be willing to pay for services if the prices were affordable.

Training the Burkinabe in Building Timber-Free Housing Alternatives

Submitted by Karen Vega on Thu, 05/19/2011 - 11:43

The WB team were welcomed to Boromo (a province of Bales located two hours from Ouagadogou) by a team from Association La Voute Nubienne; a French non-governmental organization(NGO) with field offices in Burkina Faso. Their team is composed of 11 Burkinabes and a French team member, who trains masons to construct timber-free houses using the Nubian Vault technique.


A Nubian Vault house is made from locally available materials and is designed to use no wood. Because the ceiling is raised into a vault it keeps the living space significantly cooler than a typical box shaped house with a tin roof. This design originated from upper-Egypt and is a good example of south-south technology transfer.


The project, funded by the Development Marketplace, is a pilot that will test out a strategy to identify local champions and potential clients for the Nubian Vault houses.

Development Marketplace in India supports the vision and ‘can-do’ spirit of social entrepreneurs

Submitted by Kirsten Spainhower on Wed, 05/04/2011 - 18:31

Satyan Mishra, founder of DrishteeDrishtee is a network of over 14,000 rural enterprises that provides villages in India with access to internet connections, consumer products and critical community services.

Brainchild of Indian national Satyan Mishra, the Drishtee model is perfecting a “last mile delivery system” to reach villages that governments are unable to.

Mishra’s success was due in part to the faith that Global Development Marketplace (DM) — a Bank sponsored partnership that provides grant funding to support testing and scaling up of innovative ideas — had in his idea. In 2003 he received a $68,100 from DM allowing him to transform a budding idea into reality and scale up into three states: Assam, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.

Day One: The 2011 India Development Marketplace is underway!

Submitted by Kirsten Spainhower on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 10:51

After months of careful planning, we’ve finally arrived at the International Institute of Medical Health Research (IIMHR) in Jaipur for the 2011 India Development Marketplace. Today marks Day One and participants have come from all over India to pitch their projects to a panel of high-level jurors.

Colombian Indigenous groups in Putumayo, taking action on Climate Adaptation Challenges

Submitted by Karen Vega on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 19:16

Image credit: Proyecto Madre Tierra


The Zonal Indigenous Organization of Putumayo (OZIP), was one of the 26 the winning institutions that were part of the 2009 Development Marketplace Competition on Climate Adaptation.


They have recently developed their blog to keep us posted! We encourage you to seek more information by visiting their blog in Spanish. You can also see the initial interview to the leaders when in the Development Marketplace Competition held in November 2009 in Washington DC.


Disseminating Innovations in the Health Market

Submitted by Maria Belenky on Tue, 01/18/2011 - 17:36

How do you provide health care for the rural poor when medical professionals are scarce or unaffordable?

One emerging solution is to computerize medical knowledge. In 2007, Arogya Ghar captured the attention of the global health community when it was selected as one of the winners of the Development Marketplace global competition.