ZAYED SUSTAINABILITY PRIZE 2019
THE ENTRANTS VYING FOR THE WORLD’S PREMIER ENVIRONMENTAL AWARD
ENTRANTS FOR THE 2019 Zayed Sustainability Prize have been varied and challenging. Each idea has taken on a specific area of environmental concern, with project finalists presenting a unique set of problems and solutions.
Nuru International is a US finalist in the food category and is working with farm smallholdings in Sub-Saharan Africa. The company was established by former US marine Jake Harriman in 2008.
Mr Harriman completed two combat tours in Iraq as a platoon commander and saw the atrocities committed against local farmers. Now, his project assists vulnerable farmers to deal with problems related to climate change.
“The past decade has not been easy and we only succeeded because of our dedicated teams and resilient farmers,” Mr Harriman said.
“Our goal is to demonstrate that sustainable development is possible in these neglected areas afflicted by violent extremist organisations, and inspire others to follow us.”
After leaving the military, he studied business at Stanford University, wanting to devote his future to helping the most impoverished communities.
Over the past decade. Nuru has helped more than 120,000 people start to lift themselves out of extreme poverty across Africa.
Direct improvements have been working with farms and rural communities to reduce their food waste, while increasing agricultural yields and reducing their carbon footprint and water pollution.
Also working in providing clean water is French engineer Jean-Paul Augereau, who put his career as a managing director in printing and textiles on hold after getting blood poisoning from unsafe drinking water.
That traumatic experience led him to establish the Safe Water Cube project.
"I began managing a water-treatment and recycling company and, in parallel, dedicated 10 years to designing simple, sustainable equipment that could deliver clean, drinkable water to communities around the world in need of such solutions;' Mr Augereau said.
"In the field, a key risk is the loss or damage of our fountains. This risk is considerably reduced by having at least two people assigned to oversee the implementation and management of the fountain in their village
Since August 2016, more than 70 fountains have been
installed in nine countries, providing safe drinking water to about 80,000 people in rural areas.
Winning the $600,000 (Dh2.2m) prize would help to finance the installation of 500 drinking fountains every year around the world.
Operation Asha is another finalist in the health category and the largest non-government organisation for detecting tuberculosis in India.
The country has been plagued by the disease, with 100,000 women abandoned and 300,000 children forced out of schools every year because of it.
The operation has developed a treatment programme across India, Cambodia and Afghanistan, serving 16 million patients and providing more than 300 disadvantaged people with jobs as health workers.
It has distributed food to malnourished TB patients, provided a motorcycle ambulance service in remote areas, and testing for heart disease, haemophilia and diabetes.
The We Care Solar project from California has a project that is improving energy access in medical care and education. The group has tested a Solar Suitcase to monitor prenatal heath in remote areas of Africa and Haiti.
Living Goods has offered a new approach to managing 8,700 community health workers in Kenya and Uganda.
Inspired by the idea of Avon’s door-to-door selling in the US, health workers visit homes offering medical services, health education, medicine and health products.
Projects providing solar energy to rural countries, where access to the national grid is limited, has been a bedrock of the Zayed Sustainability Prize since it was established in 2008. The latest solar energy solutions have come a long way since then.
Bboxx employs 600 staff in Rwanda, Kenya, China and elsewhere, and has installed more than 150,000 solar home systems to provide clean energy to 675,000 people.
Finalist Acumen is helping to fund sustainability projects around the world.
The company aims to raise seed funding for sustainable energy projects with the aim of improving the lives of eight million people.
Since 2007, Acumen has invested $21m in 18 energy companies across East and West Africa, India and Pakistan to build the largest global portfolio of energy companies serving the poorest communities.