To ensure that the benefits of innovation percolate to the population at bottom of the pyramid, FICCI jointly with the Technology Development Board and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Millennium Alliance (MA) Program in 2011. For the first time, an Alliance was forged as an innovation partnership for Global Development focusing on important sectors including Health, Basic Education, Water and Sanitation, Food Security/Agriculture and Clean Energy. UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), ICCO Cooperation, ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth, World Bank Group and Facebook have now joined to scale the platform.
A $25 million fund has been set up for testing and demonstrating the success of Indian innovations in terms of concrete development outcomes for the base of the pyramid populations in India, South Asia and Africa. 86 social enterprises have been supported so far under the programme with a funding support of over Rs. 60 crores. 12 of these social enterprises are being supported for replication of their projects in Kenya, Nepal, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Uganda, Rwanda and Afghanistan.