The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and partners announce the winners of the 13th Equator Prize, recognizing ten Indigenous peoples and local communities from nine countries. Winning organizations demonstrate how innovative, nature-based solutions can enable communities to achieve their own local development goals, while building community resilience, even in a time of economic, environmental, political and public health shocks. The announcement also marks the Equator Initiative’s 20^th anniversary, recognizing 264 winners to date.

This year’s winners highlight the theme of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples: “The Role of Indigenous Women in the Preservation and Transmission of Traditional Knowledge.” Four of this year’s Equator Prize winners are women-led initiatives, all ten promote gender equality in their community, and all showcase the importance of placing traditional knowledge and nature-based solutions at the heart of local development. At a time when we are facing unprecedented planetary crises, it is essential to accelerate actions that protect and restore the world’s ecosystems, and Indigenous women are at the forefront of this work.

The winners, selected from a pool of over 500 nominations from 109 countries, hail from Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Mozambique and Argentina. Equator Prize winners will receive US$10,000, and the opportunity to take part in a series of special virtual events associated with the UN General Assembly, the UNDP Nature for Life Hub, COP 27 in Egypt, and COP 15 in Montreal.