221 results · grouped by type
practices
221LabCampesino (peasant laboratory for the transition to agroecology)Community open-innovation laboratory driven by the peasant organization Tierra Libre in the Sumapaz province (Fusagasugá and Pasca, Cundinamarca). Rural youth co-create situated, open-hardware technologies for territorial management and the agroecological transition, linked to community biofactories and the Agroecological Peasant Schools (ECAs). It combines agroecology, co-creation and community organizing through participatory action research.Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF)State-wide transition to natural farming (without synthetic chemical inputs) led by communities, scaled through Community Resource Persons and women's self-help groups. The public agency RySS coordinates farmer-to-farmer training in agroecological principles. The state pilot launched in November 2016; coverage ranges from ~1 million (2024, CEEW case) to 'more than 6 million' according to the CEEW country brief.Kenya Community Health Volunteer / Promoter (CHV/CHP) home-based care programmeDigital Green video-based farmer extensionAgricultural extension model in which farmers record short videos of their practices, which are then screened to village groups by local mediators. Born as a Microsoft Research India project (2006) and an independent NGO since 2008, it scaled to millions of smallholder farmers. Randomized evaluations showed higher adoption of sustainable practices at a fraction of the cost of conventional extension.Kudumbashree collective (group) farming by womenWomen's collective farming program under Kudumbashree, the Government of Kerala's poverty eradication mission. Joint liability groups (JLGs) of women, many landless, lease and farm land in common, accessing credit, inputs and markets collectively. Around 61,836 JLGs and ~280,000 women farm approx. 38,706 hectares. Bina Agarwal's research showed they significantly outperform the net returns of individual farms.Deccan Development Society women's sanghams (millet agrobiodiversity)Biodiverse dryland farming movement led by Dalit and Indigenous women's sanghams in Zaheerabad, Telangana. Since 1983 they have recovered and grown traditional millets and dryland crops, with a Community Grain Fund, a community seed bank, community media and their own millet market. Recognized with UNDP's Equator Prize 2019 and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation award (2020).iCow (Green Dreams Tech)Mobile phone-based farming platform designed for basic phones without internet, delivering agricultural and livestock knowledge via SMS, livestock management reminders, a virtual marketplace (Soko) and expert lookup. It was born out of an Apps4Africa hackathon and operates via Safaricom (*285#). Since ~2019-2022 the organization pivoted to regenerative agriculture and soil health under iCow Regen Academy; the original SMS/Soko product is largely historical.Shamba Shape Up (Mediae)Makeover-format television series (edutainment) produced by The Mediae Company that visits smallholder farms in Kenya and improves them on the spot with experts, demonstrating soil fertility, animal health, agronomy and climate adaptation practices. It airs on Citizen TV with an audience of millions of weekly viewers in East Africa.Land van OnsCitizen cooperative founded on 30 September 2019 by Franke Remerie and Jaap Benschop, which buys farmland with contributions from its members (from 20 EUR per square meter) to restore biodiversity and landscape. Members become collective co-owners; the land is leased to organic farmers who practice toxin-free cultivation, while volunteers plant hedgerows and trees. By mid-2026 it manages ~400 ha across some 30 plots, with ~31,000 members.Sarar Transformación - school ecological sanitation (Mi Escuela Saludable / TepozEco)Multidisciplinary consulting group based in Tepoztlán, Morelos, specialized in decentralized ecological sanitation (ecosan) with a participatory approach. It drove the TepozEco urban pilot project (2003-2006) and brought school ecological sanitation (composting toilets and urine-diverting dry toilets, sand filters for greywater) to schools in Morelos and the Sierra de Oaxaca. Its SARAR method empowers communities to plan, implement and monitor their own systems.AQUACOL - associative community management of water and sanitationSecond-tier association that brings together community-based organizations providing water and sanitation services in rural and peri-urban areas of Valle del Cauca and Cauca. It emerged from the associative strengthening process among community aqueducts supported by the CINARA Institute (AGUA 1998 event) and obtained legal status in 2001; the Mondomo aqueduct was a founding node and operates as a Community Water Learning Center.Sulabh Shauchalaya two-pit pour-flush sanitation movementSulabh International disseminates the Sulabh two-pit pour-flush toilet, a low-cost sanitation technology that uses only ~2 liters per flush, requires no sewerage, produces biogas and biofertilizer and eliminates manual scavenging of excreta. It operates pay-per-use public toilet complexes in hundreds of cities and promotes the rehabilitation of manual sanitation workers.Piramal Sarvajal solar water ATMs (franchise safe drinking water)A social enterprise that installs water ATMs: solar-powered, cloud-connected purified water dispensing machines operated by a local entrepreneur under a franchise model. Users pay with a prepaid RFID card. An IoT device (Soochak) monitors quality, liters and machine health in real time. It operates hundreds of plants in rural and urban areas across several states.Asomefama and Camharina: shrimp waste flour in TumacoAsociación de Mujeres Emprendedoras para un Futuro Amigable con el Medio Ambiente (Asomefama), made up mostly of women heads of household and victims of the armed conflict in Tumaco, founded by sisters Jacqueline and Yesy Sevillano. They recover shrimp exoskeletons and heads that used to be dumped into the Pacific and transform them into 'Camharina', a protein-rich flour (washing, seven-hour dehydration at 80°C, milling and packaging; ~800 kg of shells per month). They thus close a loop on a local fishing waste stream by turning it into a marketable food, with scientific and business support from the CircularEconomy4Colombia program.Vayomithram ProjectMaji Milele prepaid water ATMs (Kenia)A system of prepaid water meters and water ATMs deployed with water service providers (WSPs) and community water points in Kenya. Users load credit via M-Pesa or NFC cards and the meter dispenses water by the liter, eliminating the manual fee collector and increasing revenue collection. It started in Kajiado county and today operates in more than 25 counties; in the Bubisa project (Marsabit) the water point's daily revenue grew by more than 520%. Maji Milele is the Kenyan operation of Water Forever International (Netherlands).San José Chiltepec community water resources management committeeA participatory process in the Chinantec municipality of San José Chiltepec, Oaxaca, through which ejido and municipal authorities, local leaders and young people formed a community committee to address the contamination of surface water sources and the drinking water supply. The committee designed internal regulations for the sanitation of water sources, validated by the community assembly. Accompanied by EcoLogic Development Fund and the Fondo Ambiental Regional de la Chinantla.Jatropha curcas (piñón) biofuels project in ChiapasState-level productive reconversion program that between 2007 and 2012 promoted the cultivation of Jatropha curcas (piñón) among thousands of Chiapas smallholder farmers to produce biodiesel, with extraction and biodiesel plants in Cintalapa and Tapachula (Puerto Chiapas) and service stations. In 2009 about 3,000 producers from 166 localities in 16 municipalities took part. The project failed: producers received poor-quality and late seed, germination was 0-40% in 79% of the cases, there was institutional instability (four government agencies within months), insufficient technical advice and delayed subsidies. Most of the decapitalized producers abandoned the plantations; the biodiesel plants were left abandoned (Cintalapa and Puerto Chiapas were dismantled around 2020).SIRDO - Sistema Integral de Reciclamiento de Desechos Orgánicos (Grupo de Tecnología Alternativa)A dry/ecological sanitation system developed since 1978 by the Grupo de Tecnología Alternativa (GTA), coordinated by architect Josefina Mena Abraham. The dry SIRDO is a double-chamber composting toilet with solar heating that treats excreta and organic waste without water, producing biofertilizer. Its community management placed women at the center of the technical, economic and social operation of the system. It operated in multiple states for decades.Kibera School for Girls (SHOFCO)Free school for girls founded in 2009 by Kennedy Odede in Kibera, Nairobi, as the core of the Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) model: the school anchors community services (clean water, a clinic, economic empowerment) that benefit the entire neighborhood. Students from kindergarten through eighth grade on full scholarships. Consistent results at the top of national exams (96% KCPE pass rate in 2018) and 100% transition to secondary school. Odede received the UN Nelson Mandela Prize in 2025.CityAdapt Xalapa: ecosystem-based adaptation to climate changeUrban climate resilience project that restores Xalapa's green belt (cloud forest, Cerro del Estropajo, Molinos de San Roque wetland) through nature-based solutions: agroforestry reforestation, soil conservation, rainwater harvesting systems in schools and public buildings, constructed wetlands and training of rural communities in climate-smart productive practices. More than 6,000 plants (3,900 trees) were planted and 12 rainwater harvesting systems were installed, providing water to more than 20,000 inhabitants.Bahía Málaga energy community (solar-diesel hybrid microgrid, La Plata)Energy community in the La Plata archipelago, Uramba Bahía Málaga (Valle del Cauca). FENOGE, with the Ministry of Mines and Energy, installed a solar-diesel hybrid microgrid plus 40 individual solar systems to bring energy from 4 up to 24 hours a day to Afro-descendant settlements (about 291 families). It began operating in May 2025. After the inauguration, the community reported that the system does not work as promised: when the diesel plant fails, the batteries last about two hours, far from the announced 70% solar / 30% diesel; the works were inaugurated without closing out the contract or verifying all the equipment.Community-based mangrove restoration in the Sundarbans (Livelihoods-NEWS project)Community-based climate adaptation initiative in the Sundarbans archipelago, West Bengal. Led by the Indian NGO Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS) with funding from the Livelihoods Fund, since 2011 it has planted more than 16 million mangroves, organizing village women in restoration and in alternative livelihoods (beekeeping, crab aquaculture, climate-smart agriculture, the Badabon Harvest brand created in 2018). The restored mangroves acted as a bio-shield protecting embankments and communities during cyclones such as Amphan (2020).Mikoko PamojaCommunity-based mangrove conservation and restoration project in Gazi Bay that sells blue carbon credits under the Plan Vivo standard. It was the world's first blue carbon project to trade mangrove credits; revenues fund both forest monitoring and replanting and community projects for water, school books and education.Planeación Local y Presupuesto Participativo de Medellín (PLyPP)Institutionalized process through which the citizens of Medellín's 16 comunas and 5 corregimientos plan the development of their territory and decide, through an annual vote, the allocation of 5% of the municipality's discretionary investment budget. It operates in four phases (planning, prioritization, execution, monitoring). Legal basis: Acuerdo 043 of 2007, Acuerdo 028 of 2017 and Decreto 0473 of 2024. In 2024 the vote (16-24 Nov) allocated close to 439.000 million pesos for 2025 projects.De CeuvelCircular urban laboratory built in 2014 on a formerly contaminated shipyard in Amsterdam-Noord, granted by the municipality under a temporary concession (winning plan of a 2012 municipal competition, land lent for 10 years). A consortium (Space&Matter with Metabolic's sustainability plan) transformed the toxic soil using phytoremediation and populated the site with ~17 refurbished houseboats serving as offices for creative and social enterprises, plus a café-restaurant and event spaces. It operates as a 'living lab' for cleantech systems: solar panels, helophyte filters for wastewater, an aquaponics greenhouse, struvite reactors to recover nutrients and the Jouliette token for peer-to-peer energy exchange.Escuela Nueva Activa (Fundación Escuela Nueva)Pedagogical model born in rural Colombia in the 1970s for multigrade schools: active and cooperative learning, self-directed learning guides, flexible promotion and student government. Adopted as national policy in the 1980s and sustained since 1987 by Fundación Escuela Nueva Volvamos a la Gente, which took it to more than 16 countries. Quantitative evaluations (Psacharopoulos et al. 1993; McEwan 1998) find higher achievement in mathematics and language and lower dropout compared with conventional rural schools.G1000 citizen summits (Netherlands)Deliberative citizen summits in which hundreds or even a thousand randomly selected residents (sortition) of a municipality gather for a day to discuss the future of their city and formulate proposals for the local government. Inspired by the Belgian G1000 of David Van Reybrouck (2011), the Dutch version started in Amersfoort on March 22, 2014 (630 participants) and was replicated in dozens of municipalities. It is organized by Stichting G1000.nu, independent from the government but a partner of the municipalities. It remains active: in 2024 the G1000 Burgerberaad of Schagen gathered ~250-320 citizens, and in 2026 the Burgerberaad Hellendoorn (concluded June 13, 2026).Pune participatory budgeting (My City, My Money)Started in 2006 by the Pune Municipal Corporation with Janwani and the Centre for Environment Education, it allowed residents to propose neighborhood projects for the municipal budget. After an initial phase with public prioritization meetings and direct voting, the deliberative assemblies ceased after 2008 and the mechanism degraded into an online consultative form, with low participation (600 proposals in 2012-13 for a city of 3.5 million) and exclusion of marginalized neighborhoods (13% of the PB budget in 2013-14).Coöperatie DeltawindRenewable energy cooperative on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee (Zuid-Holland), founded in August 1989 by island residents who wanted to generate their own green electricity, with more than 2.400 members. It develops and operates wind and solar farms on the island and is co-developer, together with Zeeuwind, of Windpark Krammer. It reinvests profits in local sustainability projects through its cooperative structure and its Stichting Windfonds Goeree-Overflakkee. It is a historic pillar of the Dutch citizen energy cooperative movement.Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) - PrathamPratham's pedagogical approach that groups children by actual learning level in reading and arithmetic, not by school grade. Evaluated in six RCTs across seven states by J-PAL (Banerjee, Duflo and team), with some of the largest effects in the literature (up to 0.70 SD in Uttar Pradesh). Scaled through state governments and replicated internationally through TaRL Africa. Pratham reports reaching 8 million children per year in 26 states and territories.Hole-in-the-Wall / Minimally Invasive Education (HiWEL)Experiment started in 1999 by Sugata Mitra (NIIT) in Kalkaji, New Delhi: freely accessible computers embedded in walls so that children could learn on their own (Minimally Invasive Education). It was institutionalized in 2001 as HiWEL, a NIIT + IFC joint venture, which reported ~300 learning stations and 300,000 children. Independent evidence documented sustainability failures (Arora 2010): Almora died from vandalism, Hawalbagh went inactive in 2007. The official site hole-in-the-wall.com is down; NIIT Foundation claims to maintain 200+ stations, a self-reported figure without independent verification.kubo.financiero (regulated P2P crowdlending)Mexican fintech founded in 2012 by Vicente Fenoll, the first 100% digital SOFIPO regulated by the CNBV operating crowdlending / peer-to-peer (P2P) lending: it connects people who need financing with investors, without traditional banking intermediation. It offers loans, savings, investment and a debit card. In February 2026 its merger/acquisition by Crédito Maestro was announced for ~610 million pesos (~US$35.6M), still subject to CNBV approval, after months of financial pressure (negative profitability and high delinquency).Mindspark - adaptive learning by Educational Initiatives (Ei)Adaptive learning software developed by Educational Initiatives (Ahmedabad; launched 2009) that diagnoses each student's actual level in mathematics and language and dynamically adjusts the content. Evaluated with an RCT in Delhi (Muralidharan, Singh and Ganimian, AER 2019): it improved scores across all groups (0.37 sigma in mathematics, 0.23 in Hindi in 4.5 months) and proved cost-effective. As of 2026, Ei reports 310,000+ students in India, South Africa, Zambia and Cambodia, with a two-year RCT underway led by IDinsight.eVidyaloka - digital classrooms with remote volunteer teachersNGO founded in Bengaluru in January 2011 by Satish Viswanathan and Venkat Sriraman that sets up digital classrooms in rural public schools with teacher shortages and connects them by videoconference with volunteers from around the world, who teach science, mathematics and English in the regional language. As of 2025 it reports 17 states, 90 districts, 950+ schools and 200,000 children impacted. Since 2024-2025 it collaborates with Microsoft on the BRAIN program to bring AI courses to 300 rural schools in seven states.Redes de Tutoría (tutoring relationship)A Mexican pedagogical model born in 1996, when Gabriel Cámara and the Aprender con Interés team were invited by CONAFE to design rural post-primary education. It is based on the tutoring relationship: a personal contract between someone who masters a topic and someone who wants to learn it. It grew to hundreds of schools and was adopted in 2009-2012 as a national strategy by the SEP in ~9,000 low-performing schools. After the change of government it survives as a civil society organization (Redes de Tutoría S.C.) in several states, with replications in Peru, Chile and Nigeria. The model lives on within CONAFE as ABCD, in force in the 2024-2025 school year.I Change My City and My City My Budget (Janaagraha)Janaagraha runs I Change My City, a civic web and mobile platform launched in 2012 that connects citizens with municipal agencies to report and resolve infrastructure complaints, and its flagship participatory budgeting campaign My City My Budget. In Bengaluru, with the BBMP, the campaign collected 16,261 proposals from the 243 wards in 31 days (2021-22 cycle), several of them incorporated into the municipal budget.Mexico City participatory budgetingMechanism through which the residents of CDMX's territorial units decide by public consultation how to spend a percentage of each borough's budget (3% since 2010, 4% since the 2019 reform). It is organized in information, selection and evaluation assemblies, with citizen voting, administered by the IECM together with the boroughs and the Community Participation Commissions. In 2024, ~1,407 evaluation assemblies were held, covering more than 1,785 territorial units and 50 pueblos. In 2025 the cycle remained active (registration Feb-May, voting 17 Aug, assemblies Sep-Dec).eCHIS Kenya (electronic Community Health Information System)National community health information system of Kenya's Ministry of Health: a smartphone app (based on Medic's open source Community Health Toolkit) with which more than 107,000 Community Health Promoters register households, manage cases and supplies, refer patients and exchange data with facilities' electronic records. Development since 2020, pilot in Kisumu in mid-2021, scale-up to all 47 counties by mid-2024, with more than 107,000 CHPs using the platform. Part of the presidential agenda to professionalize and pay CHPs.Verificado19SCitizen network for collaborative mapping and information verification activated after the September 19, 2017 earthquake in Mexico. A collective of organizations and volunteers recorded damage, buildings at risk, gas leaks, shelters and collection centers in a database and a map (Google Crisis Map), verifying each report with witnesses in the field before publishing it. It fought disinformation with double verification and coordination via Twitter.UNAL / HUN Digital telemedicine network (Centro de Telemedicina, Universidad Nacional de Colombia)Telemedicine program of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, created in 2002 to bring specialized health services to remote regions (Amazonas, Vichada, Guaviare, Caquetá, Arauca, Putumayo, among others). It has served more than 30 health institutions and today operates through the Hospital Universitario Nacional (HUN Digital: teleconsultation, tele-expertise, TeleUCI Solidaria) and the program 'Conectando la salud a la región', which under Agreement 2129 of 2025 with MinSalud, UdeA and UniCartagena installs teleconsultation centers in remote municipalities such as Puerto Leguízamo (Putumayo), avoiding river journeys of 6-8 hours.Data CívicaOrganization that uses data and technology to defend human rights in Mexico, with a focus on enforced disappearance, violence and femicides. It cleans, cross-references and analyzes official records to expose inconsistencies and equip families and organizations with advocacy tools. It developed 'Volver a Desaparecer', which documents how thousands of names disappear from official records, and in 2024 it denounced irregularities in the Estrategia Nacional de Búsqueda.eSanjeevaniIndia's national telemedicine service connecting patients and rural clinics to doctors and specialists.Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture Program (MasAgro)National agricultural innovation initiative (2010-2020) led by CIMMYT and the Ministry of Agriculture to sustainably raise the maize and wheat productivity of small and medium-scale rainfed farmers. It built innovation networks (hubs) in 12 regions that connected farmers, researchers, suppliers and seed companies, spreading conservation agriculture, improved seeds, mechanization, ICT and post-harvest storage. In 2020 it was reconfigured under 'Cultivos para México'.HerenboerenNational community-supported agriculture (CSA) movement in which groups of ~200-250 households become co-owners of a cooperative, hire a professional farmer and produce food together organically and nature-inclusively. Each household makes a one-time investment (~2,000-2,500 EUR, refundable) and pays a monthly fee. The first Herenboerderij started in Boxtel in 2016; by 2026 there are ~23-25 farms feeding more than 9,000 people. In June 2025 the national foundation (Stichting Herenboeren NL) went bankrupt; the local farms, which are independent, kept operating and coordination passed to the Vereniging van Herenboerderijen.Khushi Baby / CHIP (Community Health Integrated Platform)Born in 2014 as a university project at Yale: a culturally adapted NFC pendant that stores the baby's vaccination history and is scanned at immunization camps. A cluster RCT in Udaipur (Vaccine 2018, 96 villages in 3 arms) evaluated the pendant + voice reminders against a control NFC sticker. It evolved into CHIP, a digital platform for community health workers adopted by the government of Rajasthan as technical partner, today with 85,000+ workers enabled in Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka, including a Climate & Health Vulnerability Index (CHVI) developed with the Rajasthan Department of Health.MasakhanePan-African grassroots collective building NLP and machine translation for African languages.Gram Vikas MANTRA community-owned water and sanitationMANTRA is Gram Vikas's program that installs household sanitation units and community-owned and community-managed piped water systems in rural and tribal villages of Odisha and Jharkhand. Its non-negotiable principle is the inclusion of 100% of the village's households, with gender equity, social equity, cost co-responsibility and sustainability.Vía Orgánica ecological ranch and school40-hectare ranch-school in the Jalpa Valley near San Miguel de Allende that trains farmers, families and activists in regenerative organic agriculture, eco-techniques, soil restoration and native seed conservation. Vía Orgánica connects local producers with consumers through a store, cafe and market, and operates as a node of the global regenerative agriculture network.Ecodorp Boekel - water self-sufficiency and nutrient recyclingCooperative ecovillage in Boekel (North Brabant) of 36 circular social homes, inhabited by some 43 adults and 14 children, designed and built by the residents themselves. It collects and filters rainwater (tanks per circle of ~10 m3, ~400 m3 per year) to flush toilets and run washing machines, saving ~40% of drinking water; treats black and grey water with helophyte filters; and has piloted, with the UvA and NIOO-KNAW, a system to recover nutrients from toilet water using microalgae to produce fertilizer.