World Challenge - five years on

World Challenge is the unique global competition which is making a difference to thousands around the world by identifying and rewarding projects and businesses which use grassroots solutions to bring economic, social and environmental benefits to local communities. This year's finalists have been filmed for a series of programmes on BBC World News television.

Launched in 2005, it has grown year on year. Last year, 726 nominations were received and over 71,000 people voted for a truly diverse range of projects and businesses.

The inspiration for the competition is highlighted by series producer, Robert Lamb of One Planet Pictures. “We saw a lot of businesses and communities that had chosen to take a positive, sustainable path, and we wanted to find a vehicle that could not only communicate this authentic good news, but involve the BBC World News viewers in telling us about examples from around the world. World Challenge was the result.”

The finalists

The 12 World Challenge 09 finalists have Asian projects leading the way, with ventures from Indonesia, Thailand and India. And in Sri Lanka, Safe Bottle Lamps works tirelessly to make the surrounding community a safer place by producing a simple, safe lamp that can be easily mass produced at low cost, using recycled glass.

For the first time in the competition’s history, there are two finalists from the United Kingdom – including a project named Mootral which reduces methane emissions in flatulent cattle by up to 94% with the use of a simple garlic extract. There are finalists from the USA, Haiti, Israel and Afghanistan while African projects are represented this year by Namibia’s Cheetah Conservation Fund Bush Project and Kenya Biogas.

How to vote

From the hundreds of applications, representatives from BBC World News and the production team selected a shortlist of 60 entries for the click expert judging panel to consider for the 12 finalists.

It’s the audience who votes for the winner – the venture they deem to be most inspirational. Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine mirrors the programme content in a six-part series of profiles. Once voting has closed, the winner is announced at an awards ceremony in The Hague, The Netherlands which is then broadcast on BBC World News.

Sponsored by Shell, World Challenge has proved hugely beneficial for previous winners and each year BBC World News returns to look at how the top three projects are faring. Last year’s winning project, Plan Bee, was awarded a US$20,000 grant by Shell to invest in its initiative in Pakistan helping female beekeepers boost their income by selling high quality honey. One year later and the programme is still enabling local farmers to earn more than twice the price they would in the local market, while making the most of their skills and environment without placing pressure on the local ecosystem.

The quality and breadth of this year’s selected finalists should inspire many other entrepreneurs to follow suit. The continuing success of World Challenge exemplifies the increasing international awareness and interest in outstanding global initiatives in the field of sustainable development and BBC World News is extremely proud to be associated with the competition.

All 12 finalists are currently being profiled in a series of films on click BBC World News.

To vote for your favourite project, visit click theworldchallenge.co.uk before 13 November 2009.

Watch World Challenge Five Years On from 14 November.

The winners’ award ceremony will be broadcast on 5 December.