Description:
The Development Marketplace (DM) is a competitive grant program that identifies and supports field testing of innovative, early stage ideas with potential for high development impact. Administered by the World Bank, it attracts ideas from a range of innovators, including civil society groups, social entrepreneurs, academia and private sector. Various partners support competitions, held at the global, regional and country level. To date, the DM has awarded over $55 million for over 256 grants through its global competition, supporting projects through proof-of-concept phase. Using funding as a launching pad, projects often scale up or replicate elsewhere. Sometimes they win prestigious awards within the sphere of social entrepreneurship. Global competitions are the keystone of the DM program. Held every 12-18 months, each global competition is initiated with an open call for proposals which draws in applications from a range of social innovators including civil society groups, entrepreneurs, and academia. Roughly 25-30 winners out of thousands of applications are selected through a rigorous juried merit-based process. Each winner receives a grant of up to $200K to implement their project over two years