Deadline: 20-Mar-23

The Equator Initiatives is pleased to announce a Call for nominations to the Equator Prize 2023.

This year’s Equator Prize will recognize innovative initiatives from Indigenous peoples and local communities that showcase approaches to implementing the newly-approved Global Biodiversity Framework, with an emphasis on nature-based solutions that achieve local sustainable development.

The Equator Prize, organized by the Equator Initiative within the United Nations Development Programme, is awarded biennially to recognize outstanding community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

As sustainable community initiatives take root throughout the tropics, they are laying the foundation for a global movement of local successes that are collectively making a contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As local and indigenous groups across the tropics demonstrate and exemplify sustainable development, the Equator Prize shines a spotlight on their efforts by celebrating them on an international stage.

Theme

• Equator Prize 2023: Celebrating the role of Local Action in achieving the Global Biodiversity Framework

Thematic Priorities

Thematic priorities include:

• Creating a planetary safety net. Actions to protect, restore and/or sustainably manage ecosystems to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, enable community-based adaption to the impacts of climate change, and to ensure essential ecosystem services. This includes actions to:
  • Protect and restore nature in order to ensure food and water security; mitigate and adapt to climate change; reduce risks from natural disasters, and safeguard biodiversity, including through ensuring habitat connectivity and species migration.
  • Safeguard Indigenous peoples’ rights to their lands, territories, and resources, including through the use of cutting-edge technology
• Redefining The Relationship with Nature. Actions that help to redefine the relationship with nature by putting nature at the heart of local development plans and policies, and by defending the rights of land and water defenders. This includes actions to:
  • Integrate Indigenous peoples and local communities’ concepts, traditional knowledge, vision, and value of nature into local and/or national development plans and policies
  • Defend land and water defenders, advocate for land and water rights, and promote social and environmental justice.
• Creating a new green economy for people and planet. Actions to protect, restore and/or sustainably manage terrestrial, aquatic or marine ecosystems, biodiversity, and/or wildlife that sustains jobs and livelihoods, including through micro- and small green enterprises, and including the promotion of Indigenous economies. This includes actions to:
  • Accelerate regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, and sustainable fisheries
  • Ensure Indigenous peoples and local communities and their micro-, small-, and medium- green enterprises (MSMEs) at the heart of fair and inclusive sustainable supply chains
  • Develop sustainable commodity production and promote deforestation-free commodities
  • Support and strengthen Indigenous economies
• Special consideration will be given to nominees working on ecosystem integrity, intactness and connectivity; intergenerational equity, and gender equality.

Funding Information

• The winners will join a prestigious network of 274 leading community-based organizations from more than 90 countries that have been awarded the Equator Prize since 2002.
• Each Equator Prize winner will receive USD10,000, and will be supported to participate in a series of policy dialogues and special events in the fall of 2023.

Local Nature-based Solutions for Sustainable Development

• The Equator Prize 2023 nomination process offers community-based initiatives the opportunity to share their work on the Equator Initiative’s web portal of local nature-based solutions for sustainable development. The platform connects communities around the world and shares local solutions that work for people and the planet. Participation in this platform is optional when submitting nominations for the Equator Prize.

Eligible Countries

Local community based-groups must be located in one of the countries listed below. Indigenous peoples’ communities from any country may nominate.

• Eastern Europe and Central Asia
• Middle East and North Africa
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• Asia and the Pacific
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Global North (nominations from indigenous peoples and communities only)

Eligible Initiatives

• Community-based associations or organizations
• Community-based enterprises and cooperatives
• Women’s associations or organizations
• Indigenous or ethnic minority groups or associations
• Youth groups or associations
• Non-governmental organizations

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for the Equator Prize 2023:

• The initiative must have been in existence for at least three years, and/or the actions taken must have been in place for at least three years.
• The nominee must be either a local community-based initiative, operating in a rural area, based in a country receiving support from the United Nations Development Programme or an initiative led by Indigenous peoples in any country, operating in a rural area.
• The actions taken by the nominee must be nature-based and must deliver benefits related to two or more Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Please Note

• Nominators are encouraged to quantify results and include data that demonstrates positive impacts in their submissions.
• Nominations may be submitted either directly by the initiative or community, by a partner organization, or by any third party that is sufficiently familiar with the activities and achievements of the initiative or community.
• Nominators must indicate whether they agree to have the solution highlighted in the Equator Initiative web portal on local nature-based solutions for sustainable development.
• Nominated initiatives will undergo a verification process that may require nominees and/or nominators to provide additional information and/or materials.
• Nominations may be submitted in: English, French, Portuguese or Spanish. To nominate in other languages (such as Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Russian or others), please contact the Equator Initiative for instructions.

For more information, visit Equator Initiative.