Nigerian wins World Bank’s youth entrepreneurship scheme

For the second year running, a Nigerian has won the Ideas for Action Initiative, a youth competition on financing for development, organised by the World Bank Group in collaboration with the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research.
 
Nigeria’s winning proposal titled: Kitovu, came out tops among 743 proposals from 118 countries, while Uganda’s proposal-Gifted Hands and India’s Agratam were adjudged first and second runner ups in this year’s competition.
 
Nwachinemere Emeka Obewe, who initiated the proposal, explained that the platform sought to create market access for smallholder farmers in distant locations by using web, mobile and SMS platforms to link farmers to processors.

It also produces buyers, transporters and other ecosystem stakeholders to tackle post-harvest losses and enable produce traceability, while increasing the farmers’ income.
 
World Bank’s Senior Vice President, The 2030 Development Agenda, Mahmoud Mohieldin, unveiled the results of the 2017 Ideas for Action initiative in Washington, during the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings.
 
Mohieldin disclosed that the winners were selected through a vigorous process, evaluating the creativity, significance, feasibility and clarity of the proposals.
 
The reviewers, according to Mohieldin, included young World Bank Group staff, technical experts and senior executives from the World Bank Group, Wharton School and the G-24 Secretariat, among others.

“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 African, 15 per cent from Latin American and the Caribbean, 13 per cent from South Asia, 12 per cent from East Asia and the Pacific, 12 per cent from North America, 8 per cent from Europe, and two per cent from the Middle East and North Africa,” he said.
 
But the World Bank’s Director of Strategy and Operations, Africa Region, Mamta Murthi, reassured 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 its associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
  
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.