Solution Exchange was initiated to offer development practitioners a forum to benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience. It is hoped that through these communities, members will have timely access to advice shared by their peers and have an opportunity to analyse, adapt and apply solutions that are built on the lessons learned by others.

Communities are organised around selected development targets of both India's Tenth Five-Year Plan as well as the Millennium Development Goals, with the goal of contributing to their successful achievement. Communities include the following:

• AIDS - This community is addressing challenges to achieving National AIDS Control Programme objectives for treatment and care of persons living with HIV and AIDS and preventing the spread of new infections.
• Decentralisation - This community is addressing challenges faced with respect to political, functional, administrative and financial decentralisation, including sectoral decentralisation and privatisation of services.
• Education - This community is addressing challenges to meeting national and globally mandated goals with respect to improving the quality of basic education, and promoting access and enrolment through primary levels.
• Environment - Water and Environmental Sanitation - This community is addressing water and environmental sanitation challenges in rural and urban areas in India - including access, quality, management and service delivery.
• Food and Nutrition Security - This community is addressing challenges to meeting the country's food and nutrition security goals - household agricultural production, food-related social safety nets, food safety, and dietary diversification.
• Gender - This community is addressing challenges to women's involvement in development - increased access, capacity, and equality in women's social, economic and political endeavors.
• Health: Maternal and Child Health - This community is addressing challenges facing public health and nutrition practitioners engaged in reducing infant mortality and maternal mortality.
• Poverty: Work and Employment - This community will address challenges faced by practitioners engaged in reducing economic poverty in India through promoting gainful, high-quality work and employment opportunities.

Everyone in a Solution Exchange community is a member of a moderated mailgroup. Members come from government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), development partners, private sector, and academia. Moderators are selected based on experience in the topic. When members come across a challenge and would like to have ideas from colleagues, a query is distributed in an email and the moderator posts it to all community members who will offer advice, experiences, contacts or other suggestions. After about 5-8 days the moderator will post a synopsis of responses to the mailgroup, including the original contributions, as
well as additional helpful resources and links, such as discussion papers, newsletters. These contributions and additional resources will be available on the website.


Along with the mailgroup, members meet face-to-face to learn about each other, make professional connections, and collaborate in common endeavors. Members have opportunities to attend workshops and interact in person.

To join one of the Solution Exchange communities that are currently being set up, e-mail Solution Excahnge at coordinator@groups.solutionexchange-un.net.in or visit the Solution Exchange website.

HIV/AIDS, Education, Environment, Food Security, Gender, Health, Economic Development

The forums were created because it was found that in over fifty years of India’s development, a wealth of knowledge and solutions have been accumulated. Some of these lessons have been shared, many more have not. The organisers believe that the most practical way to promote collaboration is to connect people with common interests and create ‘Communities of Practice’ that explore and synergise
development experience. These Communities of Practice leverage knowledge and strengthen partnerships
between public, private and community stakeholders - they accelerate India’s
development.