New Delhi: Industry body Ficci Monday announced a partnership with the World Bank to advance the Millennium Alliance (MA) initiative.
The MA seeks to identify and scale up innovative solutions being developed and tested by social enterprises in India that can improve access to services for poor and under-served populations across India and the world.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by A Didar Singh, Secretary General, Ficci and Onno Ruhl, India Country Director, World Bank.
The MoU formalised a shared commitment to support solutions that provide sustainable last mile delivery to populations at the base of the pyramid in healthcare, sanitation, education, clean energy and agriculture.
"Ficci and the World Bank have come together in a knowledge partnership to promote the replication and scaling up of innovative approaches in service delivery across South Asia and Africa regions.
"The World Bank will bring global experience and incubate these new and inclusive approaches for bringing services to the poor.
"The partnership will facilitate dialogue between social enterprises and governments so that solutions can be scaled up to under-served populations under the government's priority programmes," Ficci said in a statement.
Besides the Millennium Alliance programme, the agreement also provides for Ficci and the World Bank to work together to enhance private sector engagement in global migration policy and promote the generation and synthesis of knowledge on migration issues.
In this, the World Bank's engagement will be led by the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD).
"The MoU provides a framework to engage private sector in key development initiatives. Collaborations on Swachh Bharat, development of social enterprises, South Asia trade and knowledge exchange with Africa will get immediate focus," said Onno Ruhl, Country Director India, World Bank.
Ficci and the World Bank's partnership is dedicated to promoting the mobility of skilled labour, enhancing safe and legal migration, and ensuring ethical transnational recruitment practices.
Potential areas of collaboration include the study of demographic changes and migration; the study of remittances, including access to finance and capital markets; and mobilising the diaspora as agents of social and economic change.
In terms of MoU, both Ficci and the World Bank anticipate that their collaboration will focus on areas, including research and analysis of pilot activities in priority areas of health and/or sanitation, and identifying and operationalising mechanisms for replicating/scaling up the benefits of social enterprise at the sectoral level.
