Equator Initiative

The new five-year program of the Equator Initiative is based on seven core activities:



1) sponsoring the biennial Equator Prize that recognizes sustainable community innovation in the tropics and which will next be awarded at a high-profile ceremony in Malaysia in early 2004,

2) offering learning exchange grants so that grassroots practitioners can share their best practices with other communities in the tropics,

3) eco-entrepreneur mentoring to provide business and financial advice for small sustainable business startups,

4) assisting people and protected areas where communities balance generating sustainable livelihoods with conserving the biodiversity in or near World Heritage Sites,

5) making the community to policy connection by linking local sustainable development innovations with policies that affect them, and advocating to ensure these communities have the input, political support and funding that their contribution warrants,

6) fostering research and learning by enlisting networks of scholars and experts to use community best practices to inform policy and development priorities, and

7) mounting a global public awareness campaign to raise the profile of sustainable communities in donor countries and encourage adoption of community best practices in developing regions.