New UN prize honours inventive partnerships in use of world’s resources

The United Nations environment agency and several of its partners today launched a new global award to recognize new strategies for the sustainable use of the world’s natural resources.

The Supporting Entrepreneurs in Environment and Development (SEED) Awards aim not to honour outcomes but innovative partnership proposals. Winners – whether they are community groups, businesses, workers organizations or local authorities – will receive support in developing business plans, seeking funding and setting up partnerships, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) reported.

Offering examples of these joint ventures, the agency cited a network of women slum dwellers in India collaborating with engineers from the United Kingdom and a French water company to improve water delivery in their communities.

In Ecuador, a consortium of European companies is working with the Government and coffee farmers to ensure that pesticides do not contaminate water supplies, while in South Africa, a small business owner is working with women’s cooperatives and the Government to test market solar technologies in rural areas, according to UNEP.

“We are not trying to set-up an international standard for ideal partnerships, but rather to honour, support and promote the entrepreneurial spirit of those working in partnerships that contribute to the achievement of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the World Summit for Sustainable Development’s Plan of Implementation,” UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said.

The MDGs are a set of time-bound, measurable targets that world leaders agreed to in 2000 at a UN summit that aim to halve poverty, bring educational parity to boys and girls and cut the rate of HIV/AIDS transmissions, all by 2015.

The SEED Awards – launched in parallel sessions at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – will be presented every two years and were initiated by UNEP, World Conservation Union-IUCN, and the NGO Stakeholder Forum for Our Common Future, based in the United Kingdom. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is also joining the initiative as one of the founding organizations.