The Tiwi Island Gola Forest, in Southern Sierra Leone is a health centre in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary. It provides traditional and allopathic healing, serves organic food provided by local communities, and provides a rich source of revenue for rural development in an area destructed by recent war.

A travel agent proposes a unique voyage into the heartland of the Amazon. Travellers can spend some time in a small village on the banks of this magnificent river, living on fishing and hunting, learning about local customs, traditions and knowledge. By taking this trip, they are also helping secure the livelihoods of this vulnerable community and their environment. These are just two of ten locally driven, business partnerships that are among the ten finalists of awards-based incentive scheme, the Seed (Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development) Initiative.

Jointly run by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the governments of Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, United Kingdom, the United States of America and Swiss Reinsurance Company (Swiss Re), it is a global partnership which seeks to facilitate bottom-up development through a hands-on approach based on knowledge transfer and local involvement.

Seed endows its winning partnership projects with strategic, targeted support and expertise by drawing on the institutional strength of its partner organizations. Research enables the Initiative to gain a clear understanding of needs and create possibilities of replicating and adapting successful models.

Announcing the ten finalists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner, commented “the Seed Initiative is again offering inspiring examples of local entrepreneurs in all parts of the world who are setting up new partnerships and using global/local networks to address sustainable development challenges with a business-case approach”.

This year’s finalist initiatives come from Brazil, Ecuador, India, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Tanzania and Viet Nam. They were selected from more than 230 applications from more than 70 countries representing close to 1,100 organisations from business, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), women’s groups, labour, public authorities and UN agencies.

The five winners will be selected and announced at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in New York, during the second week of May 2007.

Francois Rogers (francois.rogers@iucn.org) is Head, The Seed Initiative.