In Karnataka, women scoop UNDP prize

In Karnataka’s drylands, where climate change has turned farming into a gamble, a collective of women farmers is rewriting the odds and their experiment in resilience has just won global recognition.

Bibifathima Swa Sahaya Sangha is one of 10 winners of the UNDP Equator Prize 2025, a biennial award celebrating Indigenous and local communities reimagining the relationship between people and the planet.

What began as a savings group of 15 women has grown into a network supporting more than 5,000 farmers across 30 villages, promoting multi-cropping, solar-powered processing units, and seed banks conserving more than 250 indigenous varieties. By combining traditional knowledge with regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, and market access, the collective aims to restore biodiversity, strengthen food security, and empowers marginalized women and young people as “agripreneurs”, advancing both climate resilience and social equity.

Its decentralized, scalable model, now replicated across several Indian states, addresses environmental and socio-economic challenges while reinforcing the resilience of dryland farming systems.

Announced on 9 August, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, this year’s prize highlights initiatives under the theme Nature for Climate Action, with a sharp focus on women- and youth-led solutions. For India, the recognition is doubly symbolic: millets — once dismissed as “coarse grains” — are now celebrated as climate-smart superfoods, gaining global attention through the UN’s International Year of Millets in 2023.

This year’s other winners hail from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Tanzania, demonstrating the power of community-led solutions at the frontlines of climate change. With this cohort, the Equator Prize network now includes more than 300 community-based organizations across 84 countries since 2002. 

Each winning initiative will receive $10,000 and be recognized during a high-level online award ceremony later this year, with the opportunity to participate in global events including the UN General Assembly high-level period and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, this November.

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