Friendship NGO Wins Earthshot Prize 2025 for Climate Action in Bangladesh

Friendship NGO Wins Earthshot Prize 2025 for Climate Action in Bangladesh

Friendship NGO, working in Bangladesh, has been named a winner of The Earthshot Prize 2025 in the “Fix Our Climate” category, the world’s most prestigious environmental award founded by the Royal Foundation and HRH Prince William. InFiNe member Friendship Luxembourg asbl has proudly announced this recognition.

This extraordinary recognition celebrates the collective resilience and innovation of the communities Friendship NGO serves in some of the most climate-vulnerable regions of Bangladesh, from shifting river islands in the north to the cyclone-prone coastal belt and the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans.

An integrated, human-centered approach

For over two decades, Friendship NGO has worked with an integrated, human-centered approach that links the environment with social and economic development through scalable, replicable, nature-based, and locally-led development solutions.

Friendship’s holistic development model is built on four interdependent commitments: saving lives, poverty alleviation, climate adaptation, and empowerment. These commitments are interwoven across all areas of work, Health, Education, Climate Action, Inclusive Citizenship, Sustainable Economic

Development, and Cultural Preservation, addressing all 17 Sustainable Development Goals in a unified framework.

From dismantlable, relocatable schools to solar villages, floating hospitals, and raised plinths, each of Friendship’s interventions works in congruence with the others.

Mangrove afforestation: A flagship climate solution

Friendship NGO’s mangrove afforestation programme, specifically recognized under the Earthshot Prize, is the largest privately led initiative of its kind in Bangladesh. It combines nature-based and locally-led adaptation to create climate and livelihood resilience.

To date, the programme has:

• Planted over 650,000 trees across more than 200 hectares of mangroves
• Prepared an additional 120 hectares for future planting
• Safeguarded 62 kilometers of vulnerable shoreline

Beyond environmental restoration, the initiative supports community livelihoods, strengthens coastal protection, and builds lasting ownership through participatory management. The project was spearheaded by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity of Luxembourg in 2018 and scaled up with support from Raiffeisen Bank and Fondation Hëllef fir d’Natur, along with many other donors.

Looking ahead

Winning the Earthshot Prize marks a milestone, not an endpoint. The support and visibility this recognition brings will allow Friendship NGO to deepen its impact and replicate its practices within Bangladesh and across other deltaic and small-island ecosystems around the world, offering “adaptation governance” and forging new partnerships to accelerate the global transition toward locally-led, community-based climate solutions.

Friendship extends congratulations to the other finalists in this category, Barbados and Form Energy (USA), whose pioneering efforts represent the diversity of solutions our planet urgently needs.

“This award belongs to the thousands of community members, volunteers, and field staff whose dedication makes our mission possible,” stated Friendship NGO. “Their courage and commitment to protecting both people and planet continue to inspire our work every day.”

Congratulations to Friendship NGO for this outstanding achievement demonstrating that meaningful, sustainable climate action begins at the grassroots, through trust, partnership, and the power of human dignity, opportunity, and hope.

Source: Friendship Luxembourg press release