Bina Agarwal, former President of the International Society For Ecological Economics and currently Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester, has been awarded the prestigious Balzan prize for her pathbreaking work in women in agriculture and gender studies. The citation says: “for challenging established premises in economics and the social sciences by using an innovative gender perspective; for enhancing the visibility and empowerment of rural women in the Global South; for opening new intellectual and political pathways in key areas of gender and development”.
The Balzan prize is one of the world’s most acclaimed prizes and comes with an award of 750,00 swiss francs, half for research. Four prizes are given annually in the following subject areas: (1) Literature, Moral Sciences, and the Arts; (2) Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences and Medicine; (3) Humanities, Peace and Fraternity among peoples. Bina Agarwal is only the second Indian to have received the prize since it was established in 1961, the other being Mother Teresa for Peace.
This is the third honour Bina has received this year, the others being the Louis Malassis Prize for an “outstanding career in agricultural development” from the Agropolis Foundation, France, and the Officer of the Order of Agricultural Merit, from the Government of France.
