On March 4 and 5 2010, the French Development Agency AFD will organise in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank an international Marketplace on Innovative Financial Solutions for Development (2010 MIF). The 2010 MIF will be dedicated to smart, fine-tuned, innovative financial mechanisms for mobilizing, channeling, and spending funds for development issues. The event will bring together development practioners, donors, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, academics, representatives from across a range of financial institutions and policy makers to exchange experience and ideas on innovative development finance solutions. The 2010 MIF will be structured around workshops and a marketplace where innovators can showcase their initiatives and projects.
The main objectives of the event are to:
- advance the agenda on innovative financial solutions for development;
- facilitate knowledge sharing and learning, including South/South learning, on what kinds of innovative financial solutions for development work, what don’t, and how to design these solutions to maximize development impact and cost-effectiveness;
- spur the evolution of cutting-edge projects that apply innovative financial mechanisms to development challenges.
A key feature of the 2010 MIF will be a competition to garner and highlight fresh ideas on how innovative financing mechanisms can be used to better solve development challenges at local, country, regional, or global levels, with the goal that successful innovations can be scaled up and replicated broadly.
The winners will be awarded pilot grants to assist them in the implementation of their proposals. Proposals are welcomed from all organizations involved in innovative finance focused on development, including financial institutions, private-sector companies, social enterprises, non-governmental and civil society organizations, government agencies, universities and other academic organizations, foundations, and development organizations. Guidelines and application forms can be accessed on this website. Proposals must be submitted by November 15th 2009.
You can download the MIF 2010 guidelines and application form on: www.fininnov.org. Proposals need to me submitted before 15 november 2009 at the latest.
For more information please contact : info@fininnov.org
See also the Euforic newsfeeds on AFD and on finance for development