Amazon Indigenous Health Route winner of SDSN award
Choose a language:
Choose a language:

The Amazon Indigenous Health Route won first place in the third edition of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Award, a recognition given to innovative initiatives to face the most challenging problems of sustainable development in the Amazon.

The SDSN Amazônia Award was launched in May this year, in association with the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS), the German Cooperation Agency (GIZ) and Instituto Amigos da Amazonia (iAMA). 

This edition of the SDSN Award aimed to identify good practices and sustainable solutions to address the new coronavirus in low-income indigenous, traditional, and urban communities of the Panamazonia.

The award considered projects to address the Covid-19 pandemic effects to medical care, education, food, decent work and economic growth, sustainable production and consumption, as well as actions for the post-Covid period.

In total, Institutions from different countries in the Panamazonia presented 11 proposals in these areas, among which was the Amazon Indigenous Health Route, a comprehensive response to Covid-19 in the Amazon based on intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogues to reduce the COVID 19 impact on indigenous communities and territories:

  1. Putting rights and cultures at the core of public health systems,
  2. Improving access to prevention and protection measures, and,
  3. Supporting communities to take care of their own.

Currently the Route has impact in 5 provinces of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and benefits 297,000 inhabitants and 6 indigenous nationalities.

Some of the results obtained so far are:

The Amazon Indigenous Health Route is possible through the collaborative action between Hivos and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin – COICA, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon – CONFENIAE, Shuar Arutam People – PSHA, the Federation of the Shuar Nationality of Pastaza – FENASH-P, Achuar Nationality of Ecuador – NAE, Alianza Ceibo, The Front for the Defense of the Amazon, The Union of Affected by Texaco – UDAPT, Universidad San Francisco de Quito- USFQ and the strategic alliances with the Pan American Health Organization, the Ministry of Public Health and Universidad Regional Amazónica – IKIAM.

Solutions platform

The Amazon Indigenous Health Route will be published in the SDSN Amazônia Sustainable Solutions Platform, an online, geo-referenced and trilingual platform (Portuguese, Spanish and English) that focuses on promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Amazon. 

The tool is a channel for the diffusion of new technologies, business models and policies that have a potential transformative impact on the sustainable development of the region. The space is aimed at solutions that are in the implementation phase or that have already been implemented.


The award, including the monetary prize, will be used to continue supporting community-centered health care prioritized by the communities with which we work and to explore the replication and adaptation of the Route in other countries such as Peru and Brazil.