One of the largest and hardest challenges facing us as development professionals is how to empower the poor to better manage climate risks and climate changes. This question is also at the heart of this year’s DM competition where we seek practical solutions to poor communities’ tough climate problems. I am excited to see what kind of proposals we’ll get and feel confident that the global community of development practitioners – NGOs, indigenous peoples groups, universities, local governments, etc – will come up with really innovative ideas and solutions.

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We discuss this point at length in a paper I just published (together with Paul Bennett Siegel and Steen Lau Jorgensen) in the journal Global Environmental Change. Our article examines the links between climate risks, adaptation, and vulnerability of people and is available for free download on the SSRN website (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1158177)

Our paper argues that some of the responses to climate change will come from unexpected quarters. Social policy and social protection, for example, have been largely absent from climate discussions yet could well turn out to be vital to protect the poor from the consequences of climate change. Social policies can create synergies between climate action and poverty alleviation. What is good for adaptation and what helps fight poverty sometimes overlaps and social policy and social protection lay at the heart of this overlap.

Note: This is a two part entry. Part 2 is coming soon.
In my first blog entry, I mentioned that adaptation to climate change spans a vast range of possible actions and that it can seem a rather abstract concept. Adaptation can range from sea walls to drought-resistant crops to social protection for climate shocks. This big range of possible actions makes it hard to nail down: what does any given country, region, or village really need to do to start adapting? Any two people talking about climate adaptation in poor countries probably carry different mental images of the kind of actions they think will be needed.

To pretend that we have all the answers—as some of the numerous reports being written on the topic do—is foolish. We are in the pioneer days of gearing up for climate change and no-one knows what actions will ultimately prove most effective.

We hear that climate changes – ongoing and those to come – are hitting the poor the hardest and the soonest. So what can we do about that?

Well, adapting to climate change is such an abstract and wide-reaching concept I find it sometimes hard to nail down. How do you actually adapt, especially if you are poor and struggling to put food on the table and send your children to school? To paraphrase the motto of the Development Marketplace, “Turning ideas into action”, I find myself wondering what are the ideas that can help poor people cope with harsh weather and what can I do myself to help nurture those ideas toward action?

I can envision France crafting emergency plans for better coping with heat waves such as the one that killed tens of thousands of elderly stuck in city apartments without air conditioning in a recent summer. But I have been struggling to imagine what the Bangladeshis can do, realistically, against the flooding and cyclones that hit them more and harder?

The Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley is sponsoring the Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge. They are seeking innovative applications of mobile technologies for human rights investigations and advocacy. 10 finalists will be chosen to present their ideas at an international conference, “The Soul of the New Machine: Human Rights, Technology, and New Media” at UC Berkeley, May 4 and 5, 2009. A panel of judges, selected by the Human Rights Center, will choose three winners, to be announced at the conference. Winners will receive cash awards of $15,000 (first place), $10,000 (second place), and $5,000 (third place) to implement their ideas.

Submission is open until March 20, 2009 (3:00pm PST; 22:00 GMT). To apply, visit http://www.netsquared.org/hrc-ucb.

The Skoll Foundation is accepting applications from innovative social entrepreneurs for their Skoll Awards. The application deadline is March 3, 2009. This annual award is aimed at supporting “social entrepreneurs who have tested and proved their approach, are poised to replicate or scale up their work to create equilibrium change, and engage others with a message that resonates with individuals whose resources are crucial to advancing solutions” to the world’s most critical challenges. Specifically they’re looking for innovations in the area of climate change, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, conflict in the Middle East and water scarcity. For more about the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurs visit their website at (http://www.skollfoundation.org/skollawards). 

Greetings and welcome to the Development Marketplace '09 blog!  After a brief hiatus, the DM blog is back on board. My name is Aaron - I am the newest member of the DM team and will be a frequent voice here. I look forward to meeting and collaborating with you.  If you are a past DM winner, we’d love to hear how things are going. If you have news about upcoming competitions, let us know. If you have any suggestions on how we can do things better, send me a note or add your comment here!

Things are rolling here at the DM. We have been busy getting the 2008 DM winning projects up and running and preparing to launch the 2009 competition focused on Climate Adaptation.  Keep checking in with us and welcome once again.

You are invited to participate in the 2008 USAID Development 2.0 Challenge! It's an open call for innovative mobile technology applications for developing countries that increase access to knowledge for higher development impact. It is USAID's first ever open source challenge. The winning project ideas will receive grants of up to $10,000 and present before USAID, the development community, and industry officials in Washington. You can access the Challenge at www.netsquared.org/usaid. Most non- US Government workers around the world are eligible to apply. Don't have an idea right now? You may still play a vital role by referring strong projects that you think should consider entering our challenge-- especially those in the field. Also, USAID encourages your feedback on existing projects, since you have expertise that can apply to help them determine the best solution - as the 15 finalists will be determined by an online community vote.

Innovators can visit www.netsquared.org/usaid to submit ideas. It can take as few as 15 minutes to apply:

In my last posting, I mentioned the importance of securing new funding to scale up activities. I’ve got some great news to share today and that is that our efforts to secure more financial resources have borne fruit in that we’ve just received news that we’re one of 12 winners of the biennial Dubai Awards. This means US$30,000 will be coming to further scale up our activities in the Congo Basin – it’s great news for us and we’re very grateful to the Dubai awards for this tremendous recognition.

An independent jury of international experts selected the 12 winners from a list of 50 initiatives, short-listed out of nearly 500 submissions. The winners were all deemed to have made outstanding contributions to improving the quality of life in cities and communities.