The beauty of Rourkela, India’s idea of urban change, lies in its simplicity. Giving farmers affordable access to cold storage for their crops will reduce waste and increase sales.
What made the idea an award winner in the annual Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge was the ambition of its implementation. Rourkela makes cold storage affordable by using solar panels. The program recruits women from the community to manage the units, providing them with new skills and new sources of income. And this encourages farmers to store surplus crops there rather than sell them at lower prices to avoid spoilage due to India’s hot weather.
“This is not new technology. This is not rocket science,” said Ashutosh Kulkarni, Rourkela commissioner. “This is a question of ideas. I believe that ideas can move mountains.”
To encourage more innovative ideas from cities around the world, Michael R. Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, on Wednesday announced the largest-ever Mayor’s Challenge. The expanded initiative will provide 50 cities with $50,000 in funding and invitations to Ideas Camp so city leaders can hone and test their ideas. The 25 cities with the best ideas will receive $1 million and the technical support needed to make them a reality.
“These new challenges will empower cities to rethink the way they deliver essential services in a way that better meets the daily needs of their residents,” Bloomberg said in a statement from the Bloomberg CityLab 2024 meeting in Mexico City. “Bloomberg Philanthropies believes in the power of cities to affect change and we look forward to the bold proposals these mayors put forward – and helping their cities make them happen.”
The most successful ideas will likely be funneled into Bloomberg’s new City Ideas Exchange program, where city leaders share what has worked and what hasn’t, so other cities can copy those ideas.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said that through the Bloomberg Cities program, she had learned informally about a tree planting program in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and how Rochester, New York, was able to employ more women in construction – two issues that are important in her city. And Gallego is happy to share with many cities how he started Phoenix’s “mobile career unit” program, which travels to areas where people have difficulty with transportation to tell them about job opportunities and offer interviews. The program was also a Mayors Challenge award winner.
“Cities are the beginning of innovation for the world,” said Gallego. “We come up with so many solutions to so many challenges and we get real results. So many countries are falling short of their Paris climate agreement goals, yet many cities are ahead of schedule.”
James Anderson, who chairs Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Government Innovation program, said he was excited about the expansion of the Mayor’s Challenge initiative, especially with its focus on reimagining core city services. The new initiative is designed to make mayors dream bigger, he added, because they are the ones who get things done.
“Cities care about the well-being of the world,” Anderson said. “We live in an urban age. The policies and programs implemented by mayors determine the daily welfare of society.”
Kulkarni, from Rourkela, said the success of the cold storage program in his city is even more gratifying as many Indian cities have already replicated it and other countries are also considering starting similar programs.
He said the program has eliminated 75% of production waste in Rourkela and increased the income of small farmers in the area by 25%.
“I joined the civil service to ensure that there is change, that people go home satisfied,” said Kulkarni. “They will get something tangible and seeing that change gives us satisfaction.”
