Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 21:

The World Bank, Nepal office today announced 40 finalists for the final round of Nepal Development Marketplace 2005, a competition intended to generate fresh thinking about the delivery of basic services to the poor living in the conflict-affected areas. All these forty innovative ideas and inventive partnerships have been invited to compete in a national competition scheduled for May 5, said Rajib Upadhaya, senior external affairs specialist, World Bank, Nepal Office. An independent jury comprising of prominent personalities from different backgrounds will select at least 20 winners out of the 40 finalists. Each winner is expected to receive a grant of up to Rs 1.4 million ($20,000) to test their ideas over a one-year period beginning July 1, he informed.

The finalists range from grass-roots service providers, including public sector development agencies, community-based organisations and non-government organisations, to schools and universities, private sector businesses and even private citizens, according to a press release issued, today. “Their enterprising ideas and creative partnerships focus on improvement in the delivery of basic services in areas of education, health, water, and sanitation, agriculture, irrigation and food security, financial services, small business and micro-enterprise support, energy, information and communication technologies, infrastructure and integrated rural development,” adds the release.

WB-Nepal had called for entries for the competition in November and December last year. 1,037 eligible entries were received, said Upadhaya. A technical team of over 50 development practitioners, sectoral experts and journalists screened all proposals and narrowed down the most promising proposals to a short-list of 245. The criteria were innovation, partnership, sustainability, replicability, impact and cost-effectiveness. The technical assessors on March 19 selected the top 40 proposals from the short-listed 245, for graduation to the national competition, said Upadhaya.