- Nigeria Wins World Bank’s Youth Development Initiative
For the second successive year, Nigeria has won the Ideas for Action initiative, a youth competition on financing for development, which is organised by the World Bank Group in collaboration with the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research.
Nigeria’s winning proposal, “Kitovu,” came out tops from among 743 proposals from 118 countries, while Uganda’s proposal of “Gifted Hands” and India’s “Agratam” were adjudged first and second runner ups in this year’s competition.
The World Bank’s Senior Vice President, The 2030 Development Agenda, Mahmoud Mohieldin, announced the results on Tuesday in Washington DC, United States, during the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Mohieldin stated that the winners were selected through a vigorous three-stage selection process evaluating the creativity, significance, feasibility and clarity of the proposals.
The reviewers, according to him, included young World Bank Group staff members, technical experts and senior executives from the World Bank Group, Wharton School and the G-24 Secretariat, among others.
He said, “The 2017 Ideas for Action competition encourages young people from around the world to develop and share their ideas for innovative approaches through the smart use of technology, as well as financing solutions to solve development challenges.
“It attracts engagement from young people across the globe, with about 38 per cent of submissions from Sub-Saharan Africa, 15 per cent from Latin America and the Caribbean, 13 per cent from South Asia, 12 per cent from East Asia and the Pacific, 12 per cent from North America, eight per cent from Europe, and two per cent from the Middle East and North Africa.”
In her remarks, the World Bank’s Director of Strategy and Operations, Africa Region, Ms. Mamta Murthi, gave an assurance that the Bretton-wood institution would continue to promote and encourage the youth globally.
She noted that the youth remained the major stakeholders in the realisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the associated Sustainable Development Goals.
Murthi said, “We focus on youths for this competition because three billion people – 43 per cent of the world’s population – are under the age of 25. The world’s youths will implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, contributing their unique solutions and shaping their future and ours.
“The SDGs are a set of 17 global goals that seek to end poverty, promote peace, and preserve the planet for future generations, all by 2030.
“More ambitious than their predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals, the SDGs cover a broad range of interconnected issues, from ending hunger, promoting health, addressing inequality, creating jobs and sustainable economic growth to improving governance and addressing global challenges such as climate change.”
Nigeria’s winning proposal, Kitovu, is an innovative platform and system that matches fertilizer type and quantity, improved quality seeds and other inputs to the right soil.
The proposal envisions a web and mobile-based decentralised fertilizer and seedling warehousing system that matches the right inputs to different farm locations owned by smallholder.
