IDE Project Selected By RIU Innovation Challenge Fund

IDE has been selected as a recipient of the Research Into Use Innovation Challenge Fund.  13 projects in South and Southeast Asia were selected to receive funding for the next three years.  Projects were selected for their “innovative approaches to getting DFID-funded natural resource research outputs into use in order to reduce poverty.” The projects also considered the “problems and aspirations of socially disadvantaged groups such as women, tribal, and/or ethnic minorities to ensure that their needs were voiced and that they were not disadvantaged by scaling up activities.”

The IDE-led project will promote new ways of marketing vegetables in Nepal and Cambodia, and pork in Vietnam.  A total of 10,000 families will directly benefit from project activities, while an additional 40,000 families are expected to benefit indirectly by adopting the same ways of integrating into commercial value chains.

In Nepal, the project will cover five districts in the Terai and tropical highlands. In Cambodia, the project will reach 40 communes in Pray Veng and Svay Rieng provinces, while in Vietnam the project will reach three upland districts.  IDE’s coalition partners in the project are Winrock International, the Center for Environmental and Agricultural Policy Research, Extension and Development, and The Agro Enterprise Center.  Within each country, the project will also engage a number of local organizations, end-user groups, and intermediaries.

For more information about the RIU Innovation Challenge Fund, visit www.researchintouse.com.

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“Four years ago, I thought poverty was my destiny, a chain that confined me, and was going to confine my family too,” says Nazrul Islam, whose family of five lived on less than a dollar a day prior to learning about IDE’s treadle pump program in Bangladesh...

Our Life is Much Better
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Before learning about IDE, Peter Chakanyuka, along with his wife and six children, farmed a ½ hectare plot of land.  Depending upon rain for irrigation, his family could only grow maize and peanuts, with yields that were too small to sell. 

After purchasing a treadle pump from a local IDE representative, the Chakanyuka family increased its irrigated land to more than two hectares in a single season...

A Good Job and a Secure Future
An IDE Success Story from Vietnam

Years of war have left Phu Da commune with vast areas of sandy, infertile land pockmarked with bomb craters. IDE’s affordable hand pumps enabled farmers in Phu Da to grow better quality, high value crops even during the dry season.  But, thanks to IDE’s entrepreneurial approach, it’s not just the farmers who benefit.