Deadline: January 9, 2020.

The Equator Initiative is a United Nations-led partnership that brings together governments, civil society, grassroots organizations, and businesses to foster resilient communities by recognizing and advancing local nature-based solutions for sustainable development. The Equator Initiative creates opportunities and platforms to share knowledge and good practices, develops capacities of local communities and indigenous peoples, informs policy through convening multi-stakeholder dialogues, and fosters enabling environments to replicate and scale up community action.

THEME

Thematic priorities include:

•  Nature for Prosperity.Protection, restoration and/or sustainable management of terrestrial or marine ecosystems, biodiversity, and/or wildlife that enables sustainable and green livelihoods, enterprises and jobs; including indigenous economies.
• Nature for Water. Protection, restoration and/or sustainable management of ecosystems for water security.
• Nature for Climate. Protection, restoration and/or sustainable management of ecosystems that help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and/or help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change.

ELIGIBILITY

To be eligible for the Equator Prize 2020:

• The initiative must have existed for at least three years or the actions carried out must have taken 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 (for a list of eligible countries, please click here); o una iniciativa liderada por pueblos indígenas en cualquier país, que actúe en un área rural.
• The actions taken by the nominee must be nature-based, and must deliver benefits related to two or more Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

BENEFITS

1. The winners will join a prestigious network of 245 leading community-based organizations from 81 countries that have been awarded the Equator Prize since 2002.

2. Each Equator Prize winner will receive USD 10,000 and will be supported to participate in a series of policy dialogues and special events during the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, in June 2020.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Equator Prize 2020 winners will be selected by an independent Technical Advisory Committee, which will assess nominations based on the following criteria:

• Impact: The extent to which the nominated initiative has resulted in measurable and positive environmental, social and economic impacts that deliver benefits towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals;
• Innovation: The extent to which the nominated initiative demonstrates new approaches and models that overcome prevailing constraints, and could offer fundamentally new approaches to adapting to and/or mitigating climate change, while advancing local sustainable development;
• Scalability and/or replicability: The extent to which the nominated initiative could be scaled up sub-nationally or nationally and/or, the extent to which the initiative can be replicated within the country and beyond;
• Resilience, Adaptability, and Self-Sufficiency: The extent to which the nominated initiative demonstrates adaptability to environmental, social and economic change, resilience in the face of external pressures, and improved capacity for local self-sufficiency;
• Reduced inequalities: The extent to which the initiative reduces inequalities in income as well as those based on age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status, in particular for the poor;
• Social Inclusion: The extent to which the nominated initiative includes youth, elders, indigenous peoples, and other diverse groups in the decision-making processes and the actions that affect them;
• Gender Equality: The extent to which the nominated initiative promotes the equality and empowerment of women and girls.

OFFICIAL LINK: https://prize.equatorinitiative.org/about-the-prize/