The DM is a competitive grant program that identifies and fund innovative, early-stage projects with high potential for development impact; it is administered by the World Bank in collaboration with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other development partners.

This year’s global competition, organized in coordination with the Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD) department of the World Bank, has drawn 1,768 proposals from around the world addressing three issues: linking small-scale farmers to markets, improving land access and tenure for the poor, and addressing the challenges of climate change and biodiversity.

The greatest majority of the selected finalists come from sub-Saharan Africa (41 percent), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (21 percent), East Asia and the Pacific (19 percent), South Asia (14 percent), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (3 percent) and the Middle East and North Africa (2 percent).  The top nine countries of implementation are India, Kenya, the Philippines, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Nepal, Tanzania and Vietnam.

The finalists compete for grant funding at the Marketplace to be held September 24-25 at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C.  Since 1998, the Development Marketplace has awarded more than $46 million in grants to over 1,000 initiatives. The competitions are held at the global, regional and national level and attract a range of ideas from innovators, civil society, academia, social entrepreneurs and business.

For more information, please visit:  www.developmentmarketplace.org