The King Baudouin International Development Prize,
A Prestigious and Original Accolade.

Convinced of the need to foster solidarity on the scale of the entire planet, for ethical reasons and also as a contribution to world stability, the King Baudouin Foundation created the King Baudouin International Development Prize in 1978. Today the Prize has become the classic reference for acknowledgement of positive examples of development.

The King Baudouin International Development Prize, worth 150,000 euros, is awarded every other year by the Foundation's Board of Governors. Beyond its actual financial value, the Prize provides winners international visibility and publicity, with the main agents of development in particular, such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union and a number of bilateral development agencies, the world of foundations and NGOs.

True to the personality and values which inspired its creation, the aim of the King Baudouin International Development Prize is to acknowledge the work of persons or organisations which have made a substantial contribution to the development of countries in the southern hemisphere or to solidarity between industrialised nations and developing nations. It also seeks to remind public opinion that the problems of development are today even more acute than when they gradually emerged in the collective awareness of nations in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The Prize endeavours to reward innovative and exemplary initiatives which give the local population the opportunity to take their development into their own hands, and are capable of being duplicated elsewhere in the world. Since its inception in 1980, the Prize has always sought to promote an inclusive view of development, as testifies the diversity of the prize-winners. The list covers a broad number of fields, from literacy to the education of rural communities, technology transfer, new forms of credit, human rights, fair trade or good governance.