Nnimmo Bassey, one of Nigeria’s foremost environmental activists, has been awarded the 2012 Rafto Prize for Human Rights.
Nnimmo Bassey, one of Nigeria’s foremost environmental activists, has been awarded the 2012 Rafto Prize for Human Rights.
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Making the announcement today, Rafto Foundation described Bassey, who runs Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, as an “untiring defender of victims of climate change.”
It said that the award is in recognition of Bassey’s long-term fight for people’s right to life, health, food and water in a world affected by complex and threatening climate change and mass environmental destruction. Through his rights based work and criticism of prevailing systems, the foundation said, Bassey has shown how human rights can help mitigate the effects of these changes.
“Nnimmo Bassey links human rights to the climate by demonstrating how climate change has the greatest effect on the world’s most vulnerable people, the very people who have contributed least to the problem in the first place,” the foundation said.
“By awarding its annual prize to Nnimmo Bassey, the Rafto Foundation underlines how the challenges we face regarding climate and the environment also have a human rights aspect.”
Last November, Mr. Bassey’s Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria emerged one of two winners of the Ford Foundation Jubilee Transparency Awards. The organization is a human rights advocacy organization that empowers citizens to address environmental justice issues in their communities.
Ford Foundation gave the awards to mark its 50th anniversary in West Africa by supporting organizations committed to transparency, good governance and citizen engagement in Nigeria.
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The other winner was Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance/Theatre for Development Centre, a network of organizations that uses performing arts as a means to help improve the participatory development process.
Each winning organization received $500,000 from the Foundation to continue its work.
The Rafto Foundation noted today that it also supports Mr. Bassey's work in Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth.
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