By Larwrence J. Halloran
Director of PSC's International Development Initiative
The Pulitzers weren’t the only prestigious awards handed out this week. Five PSC member companies were among 40 international development organizations recognized by DevEx as the most innovative in their field.
Results of a survey of thousands of development professionals from around the world honored Abt Associates, AECOM, Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte Consulting and Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) for their application of ground-breaking concepts and approaches against stubborn development challenges.
Some examples of their hard work:
• Shunning conventional wisdom that favors microfinance over bigger lenders, DAI used a $2.5 million management contract to rebuild a failed Mongolian bank into a $125 million engine of economic growth and social mobility.
• Abt Associates took lessons learned about behavioral changes in their health practice and applied those same techniques to transform destructive habits into sustainable agricultural development.
• Sensing that financial and food markets shared similar sensitivities to downturns, Booz Allen Hamilton created a food security and nutrition model countries can use to anticipate and respond to food emergencies.
• Deloitte hosted an innovation tournament among its practitioners to test unique approaches to stubborn problems like real-time grants management information.
• AECOM developed a modeling tool to integrate environmental and financial factors and allow users to determine the most cost-effective and sustainable development approaches.
This isn’t grandpa Pulitzer’s international aid anymore. These and many other innovative approaches by international development firms demonstrate vividly that modern assistance has evolved into adaptive and creative approaches successfully applied by skilled development professionals to some of the world’s most dynamic problems.
