The Global Coalition of Civil Society, Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and Local Communities for the Universal Recognition of the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment, a group with several connections to Channel grantees, accepted the 2023 UN Human Rights Prize on December 10, 2023.
The Coalition, which consists of more than 1,3500 organizations and social movements from around the world, was formed in 2020 to “call to the UN and its Member States to recognize and uphold the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.” The Coalition was chosen for its pivotal role in the UN General Assembly’s adoption of resolution 76/300 which recognized the right to a healthy environment on July 28, 2022.
Pratima Gurung, pictured in the video below, leads the Coalition and has worked with several past and current Channel grantee partners. Gurung currently serves as a board member of Women Enabled International. She is the founder of National Indigenous Disabled Women Association of Nepal (NIDWAN), a grantee partner of Global Greengrants. Gurung also served as a committee member of the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network funded by Disability Rights Fund and was a part of their Global Advisory Panel between 2016 and 2018.
The UN Human Rights Prize was established by the General Assembly in 1966. It honors outstanding achievements in human rights and is awarded every five years. The award was presented at a ceremony in New York and was accepted by a delegation of representatives from the Coalition.