World Bank Sudan selects 57 projects for development competition
August 15, 2007 (JUBA, Sudan) — The Sudan World Bank Country office this year received over 500 entries for its Sudan Development Marketplace competitions. The entries came from all corners of the country Out of the 500 project proposals submitted, 57 have been selected to compete for the grant awards. 6 of them are from Southern Sudan. Each winner will receive up to US$20,000.
Donors providing funds for the awards include Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the World Bank. The Bank of Sudan has provided its conference centre for the occasion.
The 57 finalists have been requested to submit their full project proposals to be scrutinized by a panel consisting of Sudanese and non-Sudanese. Finalists will be brought from their different locations to Khartoum for a two-day event on August 20 and 21.to display their project ideas and answer questions from a panel of independent jurists. The jury will then select the winners. The Khartoum event will also provide opportunity for finalists to interact with development experts and potential investors working in their areas of interest.
The second day of the DM will host the Knowledge Forum in which experts will discuss issues of social accountability and the role of the civil society organizations in promoting this crucial function.
The theme for this year’s DM is “Towards an Inclusive Sudanese Society.” It has been carefully selected to capture the aspirations of Sudanese people for peace and development. The aim is to support the recovery and reconstruction efforts in the country through pro-poor and pro-peace initiatives working towards consolidating peace and supporting the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
The Development Marketplace (DM) is a World Bank program that invites people to share ideas for enhancing development outcomes by participating in transparent grant competitions.
The competitions are organized at global and country or regional levels. In this year’s Global Competitions which took place in May in Washington a Southern Sudanese NGO called the New Sudan Education Initiative was one of the 22 winners. It got a grant award of US$200,000 to build health science schools in different parts of Southern Sudan to train about 5,000 health workers.
(WB)