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Global Development Awards and Medals Competition 2010:
Winners’ focusing on channeling finance to sustainable development
The prize distribution ceremony of the Global Development Awards and Medals Competition 2010 was held at the 12th Global Development Annual Conference in Bogota, Colombia. The winning entries were awarded for outstanding research proposals and development projects and research papers in channeling finance to sustainable development.
The Global Development Awards and Medals Competition is very crucial as it impacts the young researchers from low income and developing countries. The main purpose of the competition is to channelize funds to where other types of funding cannot reach. GDN’s President Gerardo della Paolera says, “Awards and Medals is one of the jewels of Global Development Network’s interventions to produce innovative ways of thinking to solve crucial socio-economic development issues”.
Once again, this year’s award recipients formed a multidisciplinary group, with wide-ranging backgrounds affiliated to various academic and professional institutions around the world. This year, the competition focused on the following three themes:
- External Capital Flows and Financing for Development
- Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Sector Development: Another Angle to Look at the MDGs in a Post-Crisis World?
- Innovative Sources of Development Finance
The Japanese Award for the Most Innovative Development Project (MIDP) was received by Edward Rwagasore and Frank Lehmann on behalf of Camara Rwanda for their project on establishing low cost e-Learning centers within the schools. The second prize in this category was awarded to Bhuwan Ribhu of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), India, for Child-friendly villages for the elimination of child labour in Rajasthan while Rajat Jay Sehgal from the Institute of Rural Research and Development bagged the third prize for his Research on methodology of learning by doing.
The prize distribution ceremony also saw Jeremiah Opiniano and Alvin Ang from University of Santo Tomas, Research Cluster on Culture, Education and Social Issues, receive first prize in the Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development. The duo’s research focuses on ‘Remittance investment climate analysis in rural hometowns (Ricart)’. The research proposal will pilot a tool to determine where overseas Filipinos from two rural hometowns can best invest their money.
The second prize in this category went to Petar Stankov from the Association for Voluntary Action, Bulgaria for his proposed research on ‘Financial crises and reversals in financial development’ and Bibek Ray Chaudhuri from The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), India for his research on ‘Impact of external capital flows on MFI performance’.
The first prize winner of Medals for Research on Development External Capital Flows and Financing for Development was Tomas Havranek from the Czech Republic’s Institute of Economic Studies (IES) for his ‘Research on which foreigners are worth wooing? A meta analysis of vertical spillovers from FDI’. The second prize went to Zorobabel Bicaba from Universite Paris Sorbonne and CERDI, France for his research on ‘Do financial reforms complementarity and reforms sequence matter for international capital inflows’. This Medal category was generously funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.
Marc Hofstetter from Universidad de los Andes, Bogota and Maria Suce Reyes from Univesidad Mayor de San Simon, Bolivia were awarded first and second prize respectively for Medals for Research on Development: Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Sector Development. The Ministry of Finance, Government of Luxembourg, funded this medal category.
A joint first prize for Medals for Research on Development: Innovative Sources of Development Finance was given to Joy Kiiru from the University of Nairobi, Kenya for her research on ‘The impact of microfinance on rural poor households income and vulnerability to poverty: Case study.’ and Kala Seetharam Sridhar from Public Affairs Centre, India for her research on ‘Innovative sources of development finance: The role of land in financing India’s large cities and comparison with China’. The medal category was supported by the Dutch Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGIS) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) as part of the GDNet Program.
The Global Development Awards and Medals Competition is the largest annual international competition for research on development. Through this competition, launched in 2000 with the support of the Government of Japan, GDN seeks to unearth new talent and recognize innovative ideas. Around 6,500 researchers representing more than 100 countries throughout the developing and transition world have participated in this competition to date. Nearly US$2 million has been distributed in prizes and travel to finalists and winners. In 2010 alone, the competition received 499 applications.
Watch this space for the launch of the Global Development Awards and Medals Competition 2011.
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