SL wins UNDP’s ‘Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Development’ award

Sri Lanka’s Rural Enterprise Network (REN) has won the Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Development category at the 2010 Supporting Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development (SEED) awards organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The SEED Awards recognise inspiring social and environmental entrepreneurs whose businesses can help meet sustainable development challenges. By helping entrepreneurs to scale-up their activities, the SEED initiative aims to boost local economies and tackle poverty, while promoting the sustainable use of resources and ecosystems, the UNDP said.

The Rural Enterprise Network, a social marketing organisation established by rural farmers primarily in the south of Sri Lanka aims at linking small-scale farmers to input-output markets. By organising producers in a network of organic agro and food processing enterprises, the farmers will benefit from improved product quality and joint marketing services.

Presenting the 2010 SEED Award and Certificate to REN, Douglas Keh Acting Resident Representative and Country Director of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sri Lanka congratulated REN for its local contribution and global achievements. “We are very pleased that one of the frontrunners in advancing the green economy is based here in Sri Lanka.”

The UNDP Resident Representative underscored the importance of equitable access, partnerships with private sector and sustainable livelihoods. “Sri Lanka has the ability to produce a number of agricultural products that are in demand locally as well as internationally. It is vital for many rural farmers to be capacitated and organised for producing such products. He added that as a long-standing partner and contributor to Sri Lanka’s development achievements over the last 50 years, through good and hard times, the UNDP has unique capacities to help the Government to meet these objectives.

The SEED awardees were selected from over 400 applications originating from about 60 countries. Together they represent the collaborative efforts of more than 1,500 organisations from the private sector, non-governmental organisations, women’s groups, labour organisations, public authorities, international agencies and academia.

This year, the SEED Awards have selected 30 innovative start-ups throughout the developing world, including initiatives from China, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and several African countries.

SEED was founded by UNDP, UNEP and IUCN at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Partners in the SEED Initiative in addition to the founding partners are the European Union, the governments of Germany, India, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.