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Mountain newspaper receives Energy Globe Award

26.02.2018

The Kyrgyz National Energy Globe Award ceremony was held on 30 November 2017 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The team of the Aiyl Demi ("Rural Life") newspaper, the Kyrgyz national winner of the environmental award, was invited to the Austrian Embassy to receive its prize. During the ceremony, Michael Mueller, Commercial Councellor and Trade Commissioner for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, highlighted the important role of the information sector in today's changing world and thanked Aiyl Demi for their contribution to sustainable development and biodiversity conservation.

Aiyl Demi is a Kyrgyz-language newspaper that covers topics on rural development, pastures, agriculture, green economy, climate change adaptation, energy efficiency and other aspects relevant to the livelihoods of mountain communities. Twice monthly, 5 000 copies of the newspaper are distributed free of charge nationwide in Kyrgyzstan and in remote mountain areas of the Murghab and Jergetal provinces, Tajikistan. Aiyl Demi was established in 2011 as a media project and was funded until 2017 by the Mountain Partnership Central Asia Mountain Hub in the framework of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation's project "Sustainable mountain development for global change". Currently, Aiyl Demi is self-funded.

Aiyl Demi aims to improve the livelihoods of mountain communities through providing rural communities access to information and highlighting their needs and challenges. The newspaper is a platform for dialogue and a communication tool for awareness raising and promoting experience exchange among rural communities, decision-makers, development agencies and other mountain stakeholders.

Founded in 1999, the Energy Globe Award invites sustainable best practice projects to participate in the annual competition. Some 800 projects and initiatives from around the world are submitted annually. In 2017, 177 countries participated in the Energy Globe Awards.

The award ceremony took place in cooperation with Advantage Austria and the Austrian Foreign Trade Promotion Organization of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.

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Photo: Aiyl Demi