World Bank Innovation Fair on Conflict and Fragility

By Sydney Smith

The World Bank’s very first Innovation Fair took place in Cape Town two weeks ago. The fair was the result of an online competition to find innovations and innovators in the field of conflict and fragility. Proposal were voted on by “crowd vote” and later narrowed down by an expert panel.  

SFCG submitted five of its projects and all made the final selection: CG News, Radio for Peacbuilding Nepal, Generation Grand Lacs, Tosalel’ango and Accountability Now in Sierra Leone which was a joint venture between SFCG and the Independent Radio Network (IRN). Africa Program Manager, Rebecca Besant represented SFCG for the first four projects and Ransford Wright of IRN attended on behalf of Accountability Now. Ransford was invited to sit on the Innovators Panel on Communications for service delivery and governance and Rebecca on the Innovators Panel on Conflict and Violence Preventions. 

Rebecca on the Innovators Panel on Conflict and Violence Preventions

Ransford interviewed by eNews, South Africa's 1st 24-hour news network

Technology was a big focus of the fair. Many projects took advantage of the high rates of mobile phone usage in many developing countries. Others sought to bridge the digital divide by bringing new technologies to rural areas.  The Reconstructed Living Lab (RLab), a local organization that teaches new media skills to at-risk youth from the rough Cape Flat neighborhood, was the Bank’s Social Media Partner for the fair. Its participants engaged in the fair by blogging and tweeting about the panels and discussions. 

In her own words

Rebecca: 

There were 30 representatives of different projects there, including someone from the magazine Hibr in Lebanon, someone doing crowd-source mapping of Nairobi’s Kibera slum, a group using sports for reconciliation in South Africa, early warning work in northern Ghana, an MIT professor doing conflict transformation work with Palestinian youth in Gaza, and a number of projects from India.  

 It was interesting to hear about the different types of technologies, what different people are doing, and what might be possible in the coming months and years. One conversation that I had, was with a South African man who is piloting mobile books, where chapters are sent out over your mobile phone. He has just started this in South Africa, and received 2,000 comments on the first installment. The service that he is using is launching in the next few weeks in Kenya.