Wednesday 24 September 2008

Sustainable Agriculture for Develoment Market

September 24-26. Development Marketplace is a competitive grant program administered by the World Bank and supported by various partners that identifies and funds innovative, early-stage projects with high potential for development impact. This year's Global Competition is focused on sustainable agriculture for development. At the Marketplace event, 100 finalists from 42 different countries will share their innovative ideas with the general public and the jury, which will select grantees to receive up to USD200,000.

Immediately following the Development Marketplace awards ceremony on September 26th, the Agriculture and Rural Development Department will host Cultivating Innovation: A Response to the Food Price Crisis, a policy dialogue with policy makers and practitioners to explore possibilities for innovation in the food price crisis response. This full day program will provide an interactive forum for exchange and networking among high-level policy makers, World Bank staff, and the Global Development Marketplace finalists.

DM2008 - Assessement of Proposals



One of the selected projects is Dial-up Radio: Agricultural Information on Demand
COUNTRY: Zimbabwe
ORGANIZATION: Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe
FUNDING REQUEST: $193,400

This project will develop a series of short segment audio programs that will provide small-scale farmers telephone access to relevant information through an automated voice system. This “dial-up” radio system will be an information hub featuring a regularly updated, diverse menu of pre-recorded agricultural content in Shona, Ndebele and English. Moreover, these flexible audio magazines will enable farmers to leave messages and ask questions thereby creating two-way communication with other farmers, suppliers, consumers, transport networks, support services and agricultural extension workers.

See also:
Kubatana - Join the NGO Network Alliance Project affordable technology to communicate with one another. Freedom Fone leverages the fastest growing tool for personal access to information 24/7 – the mobile phone – & marries it with citizen radio programming
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) MobileActive.org
Dialup Radio is a tool that distributes human rights and independent media via telephone.

Reference:
For the full list see DMO8 Event Guide (PDF document)
WB press release June 23, Global DM2008: 100 Innovative Ideas to Make Sustainable Agriculture Work for Developement