09-08-2025
‘UNDP Equator Initiative Award' for Bibi Fatima SHG of Teertha village
A self-help group (SHG) from a small village in Kundgol taluk of Dharwad district has bagged the 'Equator Initiative Award' given by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is also referred to as the Nobel Prize for Biodiversity Conservation.
The Bibi Fatima Women's Self-Help Group from Teertha village in Kundgol taluk is one among the 10 winners of the Equator Prize 2025. The awards were announced on International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples and are presented annually to honour nature-based solutions led by indigenous people and local communities that promote sustainable development and ecological resilience.
As per UNDP official release on its portal, Bibi Fatima Women's SHG is the sole group from India to win the award, other winners are from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and Tanzania. The award includes a cash prize of $10,000 (approximately ₹8.5 lakh). This year's award selection was based on the theme Women and Youth Leadership for Nature-Based Climate Action'. Around 700 competitors from 103 countries competed for the prize.
In press release issued here, Sahaja Samruddha, a mentoring organisation for the SHG, said the women's group had made remarkable achievements in areas of implementing eco-friendly farming practices in rainfed lands, managing community seed banks, ensuring food and nutrition security, promoting millet cultivation and running a millet processing unit, to value addition and marketing. The group had revived millet based mixed cropping systems through natural farming methods in around 30 villages. The SHG was formed in the year 2018 by just 15 women.
Beginning with the objective of improving the livelihoods of small and marginal farming families through sustainable agriculture, the group introduced millet-based mixed cropping on rainfed farms, promoted climate-resilient farming systems, practised livestock rearing and horticulture and popularised millets at the village level.
With the assistance and support of Sahaja Samrudha, Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR), Hyderabad, and CROPS4HD they set up a millet processing unit, which is entirely managed by women. Selco Foundation provided a solar-powered electricity system for the unit.
The Bibi Fatima SHG has also established a community seed bank to distribute these seeds free of cost to interested farmers. This apart the group produces value-added millet products such as rotis and vermicelli. Through initiatives such as on-farm biodiversity conservation in dryland areas, farmers' markets, and sustainable agriculture practices, the Bibi Fatima SHG has improved the economic status of women from small and marginal farming households. Bibi Fatima SHG is promoting rural, agriculture-based enterprises in collaboration with Devadhanya Farmer Producer Company, the release said.
