Deadline: 15-Jan-2025

Applications are now open for the Prince Talal International Prize, which is awarded annually by the Arab Gulf Programme for Development with the aim of inciting and encouraging innovation and creativity in human development.

The idea of the Prize is stemmed from AGFUND’s approach to enhance development performance and support key development projects in order to achieve the goal of sustainability and investment in people.

Stemmed from AGFUND’s approach to enhance development performance and support key development projects, the overall objective behind the Prize idea is to contribute to the efforts aiming to achieve sustainability in development and investment in people. In this sense, Prince Talal International Prize has become a leading mechanism to identify successful development projects, reward them and disseminate their innovative ideas to best contribute to the improvement of development work. It is also an innovative approach and a strategic instrument to exchange successful experiences to strengthen the mechanisms of development cooperation and project funding with special emphasis on the most prominent factors that militate against development and affect the vulnerable groups, particularly women and children in developing countries. These include poverty, social exclusion, socio-economic marginalization, education and health.

Objectives

• Prince Talal International Prize for Human Development aims to:
  • Support the distinguished efforts aiming at the promotion and enhancement of human development concepts.
  • Disseminate the successful project experiences.
  • Highlight the best practices, which aim to improve the living conditions of the poor and disadvantaged with particular emphasis on women and children.
  • Enhance the exchange of experiences and develop better mechanisms to find solutions to the problems of poverty, marginalization and socioeconomic exclusion of vulnerable groups.

Focus Areas

• AGFUND believes in the sustainability of human development and poverty alleviation and struggles to enable vulnerable groups (women and children, people with special needs, displaced people and refugees etc) to exercise their civil rights in their communities and lead a dignified social and economic existence with improved living conditions. AGFUND focuses in the following areas:
  • Early Childhood Development: Children and women are the two categories targeted by AGFUND in its efforts to support and finance human development projects in developing communities.
  • Women’s Empowerment: A significant conviction in AGFUND methodology is that many development deficiencies in Arab communities are caused by absence of women participation in community development.
  • Civil Society Development: AGFUND realized that civil society is the right hand of governments not only in development, but also in mustering idle economic and human resources and powers, in engaging all societal categories in this process not leaving anyone under poverty and deprivation.
  • Education: Education is the catalyst of change, which is the basis of sustainable development. AGFUND depends on the quality and penetration of education to qualify, train and make manpower up to modern life requirements.
  • Financial Inclusion: AGFUND Microfinance Unit (AMU). The Mission of this Unit is to build the capacity of MFIs in the region, specifically Microfinance Banks.

Prize Information

• Prince Talal International Prize for Human Development carries cash amount of US$ 1,000,000, certificates of recognition and trophies. The prize amount is allocated for the winners of the Prize in its four categories as follows;
  • First category prize:
    • Amount: (US$ 400,000)
    • Specified for projects implemented by UN agencies or international and regional NGOs.
  • Second category prize:
    • Amount: (US$ 300,000)
    • Specified for projects implemented by national NGOs.
  • Third category prize:
    • Amount: (US$ 200,000)
    • Specified for projects implemented by governmental bodies (ministries and public institutions) or social business enterprises.
  • Fourth category prize:
    • Amount: (US$ 100,000)
    • The Specified for projects initiated, funded and/or implemented by individuals.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Prize shall be handed over to the heads of the winning organizations in an annual ceremony, to which representatives of the local and international development organizations located in the hosting country, development experts and specialists, diplomats, and media representatives are invited.

For more information, visit AGFUND.