China Development Marketplace: Over US$1 Million Awarded to 50 Innovative Projects

On October 22, 2008 fifty winners were announced at the end of this year China Development Marketplace entitled “Supporting Grassroots Innovations for a Harmonious Society.”  With a total award pool of US $ 1 million, this competition identified efforts targeting poverty reduction and addressing development challenges towards building a harmonious society.

Almost 500 applicants from all over China submitted their ideas on how to best reduce poverty, illustrating the large numbers of innovative, local solutions.  The 115 finalists with the best ideas were invited to Beijing for the two-day competition to showcase and share their unique ideas.  In addition to a grant competition, finalists also participated in a Knowledge Forum to help these groups expand their skills and knowledge and to promote networking among them.
 
A diverse and eminent jury selected the winners during the event.  Many of these judges came from partner organizations, including government agencies, Chinese and multinational corporations, academia, the nonprofit community, media, and the international donor community.
 
Representing China’s 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, the winners propose a range of different approaches to reducing poverty and addressing other development challenges.  Some winning projects include creating nongovernmental monitoring stations to monitor the quality of water in the Yellow River and report on pollution; preserving Miao (an ethnic minority group in Guizhou) cultural heritage through school education and extracurricular cultural activities, particularly targeted at the migrant children; organizing a farmers cooperative to develop sunflower farming, reduce land degradation and biogas as a clean energy; and psychological counseling for primary school students in mountainous areas in earthquake-affected Sichuan.

David Dollar, China Country Director of the World Bank, blogged on the China Development Marketplace on the East Asia & Pacific on the rise Blog. Read his post: China ideas marketplace uses entrepreneurial spirit to tackle social issues