Millennium Alliance: An Innovation Partnership for Global Development Impact
The MA is a consortium of partners (Public-Private Partnership) including the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), Facebook and Marico Innovation Foundation.
The program is currently running in its sixth year and has played a catalytic role in providing funding, capacity building and business development support to Indian social enterprises. A third-party analysis has brought out the following achievements under the Millennium Alliance initiative:
- MA platform has supported 124 social innovation projects
- INR 87 crore has been awarded as grants to the MA enterprises
- The projects supported under the program have impacted 7 Million lives across 12 low-income countries.
- The platform has been able to create150000+ direct and indirect jobs
- 22 Indian social enterprises are replicating and scaling their innovations in 12 countries in Africa and South Asia namely Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Nepal.
- MA has supported the replication and scale of social innovations in 22 states of India including low-income state such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan
- The enterprises supported by MA have been further able to leverage 2.5 times funds from external sources because of their association with the platform and the impact they generated through support received from the platform
- Enterprises supported have further leveraged US$ 49 million from external sources of funding (from government and private sector).
Objectives
Provide a platform to leverage Indian creativity, expertise and resources to:
- The Alliance intends to identify breakthrough innovations that address long felt developmental issues in a more effective and/or economical manner.
- The Alliance encourages innovators to rigorously test and evaluate their innovative solutions and select those that have the maximum developmental impact in a cost efficient and effective manner.
- The Alliance aims to support innovations with wider societal appeal and help scale it to a level that it reaches and affects the needy population.
MA Partners
Department of Science and Technology
India is one of the top-ranking countries in the field of basic research. Indian Science has come to be regarded...
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FICCI
FICCI is the rallying point for free enterprises in India. It has empowered Indian businesses, in the changing times, to shore up their competitiveness...
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USAID
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the independent U.S. agency that provides economic, development, and humanitarian assistance...
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UK AID
For several decades, Government of UK’s Department for International Development has been actively working with the Government of India to help India achieve...
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Facebook
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Marico Innovation Foundation
Incepted in 2003, Marico Innovation Foundation (MIF) is a not- for- profit organization in India that aims to nurture innovation......
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Letter From The Director
In 1931, while addressing FICCI’s 4th Annual General Meeting, Mahatma Gandhi emphasized that members of the industry should regard themselves as “trustees & servants of the poor…” Since then, FICCI has constantly striven to follow the path shown by the Mahatma. With Millennium Alliance (MA), we hope to take another bold step towards solving some of India’s most complex problems. We are glad to be joined by a number of public and private sector partners whose resources and commitment are central to the success of MA.
Our aim is to identify and nurture Indian entrepreneurs who are committed to challenging the established paradigm and to developing effective solutions to pressing development problems. In just four years of operation, MA has heard from hundreds of entrepreneurs from every corner of the country. It is heartening to see the single-minded devotion of these entrepreneurs to making India a better place for all of its citizens. This demonstration of interest confirms for us at Millennium Alliance that our approach of supporting innovators is one of the utmost urgency. As our program grows, we aim to expand our engagement with entrepreneurs directly to maximize our contribution to the development of the nation and beyond.
This website is designed to help you understand the nature of our work, how you can benefit from engagement with MA, and how you can support us. It contains detailed information regarding our values and vision, application process, current awardees, and our partners. We hope that you find it instructive and will join us in our mission to improve the lives of millions of our fellow citizens.
Please feel free to contact MA with questions.
Sincerely,
Nirankar Saxena,
Deputy Secretary General, FICCI
Millennium Alliance Round 7 Call for Applications
The Millennium Alliance - Round 7 call for applications for South-South supported by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Gov of UK aims to promote innovations that cause no harm to the environment, local economies, and livelihoods of people, The objective is to enable India to steadily move towards its economic growth and development targets while restoring, conserving, and enhancing its natural capital. The program also aims at creating an ecosystem that supports green innovations globally and produces additional benefits to the environment and enhances natural capital and builds the resilience of people, the environment, and economies to climate shocks.
The Alliance is looking for innovations that create new ideas, new entrepreneurs, and new business models, that lead to the establishment of new markets and eventually to the creation of new jobs that are compatible with the global green growth agenda. Innovations should be in the following sectors:
- Agriculture/Food Security
- Clean Energy/Climate Change
- Disability
- Financial Technology
- Water and Sanitation
- Health
The innovations should be environment-friendly technologies attractive for uptake by the private sector that helps adapt to climate change and is targeted at the poor and promotes low carbon emission targets. 50-50 split on adaptation and mitigation with adaptation focusing on early warning systems, promoting climate-resilient technologies in agriculture, water management, land-use planning, and disaster risk resilience, and mitigation focused on low carbon growth, promoting clean energy and energy efficiency tech, waste management, etc.
- Grant funding can be availed under the call for the following activities:
- Scope demand for the innovation in the LIC
- Adapt the innovation based on the requirements of the new context
- Build local partnerships for implementation (with NGOs, businesses, or the government),
- Run a small-scale pilot.
In the application, the enterprise should be able to demonstrate demand for their innovation in the country of replication. Replication to countries in South Asia and Africa are eligible for Stage 3 funding. South-South grant size is determined on a case-by-case basis. Applicants are advised to please read the application guidelines carefully before applying.