Aaranyak, an Assam-based NGO working for the conservation of nature and a Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) on 25 November 2014 won United Nations Lighthouse Activities award for the year 2014.
They won the award under the focus area of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions.
They won the award for its community-based flood early warning system that has benefited 40 villages in flood-prone Dhemaji and Lakhimpur districts. Since 2010-11, the system has directly or indirectly benefitted more than 20000 people living in the catchment areas of two rivers, Jiadhal in Dhemaji and Singora in Lakhimpur districts.
The award was declared by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany. Representatives of Aaranyak and ICIMOD will go to Lima, Peru to receive the award on 11 December 2014.
Apart from community-based flood early warning system, the UNFCCC also announced 11 other shining examples of climate action, and they are:
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| Initiative name | Details |
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| South Asian Forum for Environment’s Resolve, Trash2Cash initiative | It is an innovative solution to the city’s solid waste problem |
| | Solar Power Company Group | It has unlocked private financing to construct a total of 36 solar photovoltaic farms in sunny, northeast Thailand, accounting for 250 MW of installed capacity by the end of 2014 |
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| Belgian-based EcoNation | It developed Lighten the Energy Bill to promote a unique financing mechanism that enables the installation and management of sustainable lighting systems, by absorbing the entire upfront investment and sharing the profits with the end user |
 | SmartSense | It is an ICT-enabled solution that is helping industrial and commercial energy consumers in India and Malaysia monitor, analyze and optimize their use of energy. |
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| Earth Roofs in the Sahel Program: A Roof + A Skill + A Market | the Association la Voûte Nubienne, through this programme addressed the problem of housing with a traditional, very low-carbon building technique known as Nubian Vault. |
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| Kopernik’s Ibu Inspirasi initiative | The initiative is bringing low-carbon technologies to women living in remote rural communities across an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands |
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| EcoMicro of Latin America | A micro finance institution that enables building the capacity of the region’s microfinance institutions so that they have the appropriate tools and know-how to develop and offer green financial products that help clients address climate change. |
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| National Resettlement Plan of Uruguay | It is relocating thousands of families out of flood-prone and polluted areas and into secure housing on secure land to help them adapt to the effects of climate change. |
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| Building Storm-resistant Houses initiative in Da Nang City, Vietnam | It has helped hundreds of lower-income households rebuild and repair their houses. |
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| Bhungroo initiative in Gujarat, India | It is a water management system that injects and stores excess rainfall underground and lifts it out for use in dry spells. |
 | Zurich Flood Resilience Program | It is an innovative initiative that includes Zurich Insurance, Wharton Business School, International Institute of Applied System Analysis, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Practical Action to look at the role of financing pre-event mitigation measures in building resilience to floods in communities that need it the most. |
