It was sunny, and tempting to sit outside at the University of San Diego to enjoy the weather. Inside, however, a group of global practitioners and scholars - organized by Patricia Marquez of USD and Carlos Rufin of Sussex University and Babson College - were discussing the role of utilities at the Base of the Pyramid. (See 'attachments' at the end of this post, where I have uploaded the meeting's full agenda as a PDF.)

Utilities provide basic services - telecommunications, water, power - that are essential to people's lives and increase their productivity. But a decade ago, many utilities in emerging markets were failing—service to low-income communities was poor, and many of their customers simply didn't pay or acquired the service informally.

The picture that emerged in San Diego, however, was more optimistic. A number of utility companies have engaged BoP communities and increased their willingness to pay, in return for investment that improved service quality. Codensa, a power utility in Columbia with 400,000 non-paying customers (out of a total of 2 million), reduced non-paying customers dramatically. Manuel Bueno has an excellent analysis of the Codensa case in his post, "The Codensa Case: Electricity and Related Services for the BOP in Colombia," from December, 2007. And mobile phone companies improved service and access to service dramatically compared to legacy fixed-line telecom companies (sometimes another branch of the same company).

(This post continues past the break; click "Read More" to continue)

As Ana first reported back in February, Ashoka's Changemakers and the Global Water Challenge have partnered to open a worldwide search for ideas and projects with the potential to transform the provision of sanitation and water worldwide.  The search, entitled Unclogging the Water and Sanitation Crisis, began with a call for projects and culminates this Sunday, when voting closes.

This is a competition through collaboration, meaning that the Changemakers community gets to nominate projects, vet them and vote for the winner.  (If you've never heard of Changemakers, check out Leslie Berger's concise profile of their work in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.) 

The water and sanitation competition is coming to a close; 9 finalists have been selected by the community, and voting is open.  If you haven't already, drop by the Changemakers site and vote - it only takes a few minutes, and your voice actually counts (the winner gets $5,000 cash and is eligible for up to $1 million worth of Global Water Challenge grants). 

In an era when most decisions - political, business - are made in back rooms away from our inquiring eyes, Changemakers represents real change.  By opening up the decision making process to anyone with a web connection, they are democratizing (and crowdsourcing) at the base of the pyramid.  Happy voting...