Combating Lead Poisoning at a Global Scale to Protect 500 Million Children

Pure Earth’s Big, Bold Audacious Idea

Pure Earth is helping governments in more than 20 countries reduce childhood lead poisoning at scale and protect 500 million children by 2033.  We received support for this major program through The Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED, dedicated to supporting bold ideas with the potential to change the world.

Working with governments across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Pure Earth and its partners will generate nationally representative blood lead level data, identify the most harmful and preventable sources of exposure, and implement targeted interventions, from regulatory reforms and safer production practices to environmental remediation. In parallel, Pure Earth is launching the Lead Exposure and Action Data Hub (LEAD Hub), a global platform that links exposure data with evidence-based solutions to sustain and accelerate progress beyond direct country engagement. 

This effort comes at a critical inflection point, as global commitments to end lead poisoning accelerate, but most countries still lack reliable exposure data, creating a narrow window to translate political momentum into durable, national action. To learn more, join us, and follow along on our audacious journey,  subscribe to Pure Earth’s newsletter.

“This Audacious investment allows us to build on more than 25 years of experience and expand partnerships with governments to establish durable national systems that reduce exposure and protect generations of children.”

– Drew McCartor, Pure Earth President

About The Audacious Project

Launched in 2018, The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative dedicated to supporting bold ideas with the potential to change the world. Housed at TED and powered by the belief that ideas change everything, Audacious leverages a global network of visionary social entrepreneurs and funders to support bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. Audacious is issue-agnostic and supports grantees to balance audacity and achievability for lasting, systemic impact. Since 2018, Audacious has catalyzed more than $7 billion for 70 projects, demonstrating what’s possible when we dream bigger and act together. The funding community includes respected donors and philanthropists including ELMA Philanthropies, Emerson Collective, MacKenzie Scott, Pivotal Ventures, Reed Hastings and Patty Quillin, Skoll Foundation, Valhalla Foundation and more.

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Why Lead?

Lead exposure is a significant public health challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where it disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, particularly children. In these regions, lead contamination is often linked to poorly regulated industrial activities, the use of lead-based paints, and the widespread use of lead in consumer goods such as foods, spices, cosmetics, and cookware. Lead exposure is responsible for an estimated 3.5 million deaths each year. More than one billion children are believed to have elevated blood lead levels, damaging brain development, limiting learning, reducing earnings, and increasing the risk of lifelong illness and death. This has broad economic impacts, with an annual economic cost of $6 trillion annually. Stealing the potential of one child is a tragedy; doing it to a billion children sabotages the trajectory of entire nations and robs a generation of its intellectual capital.

We prioritize lead poisoning not only because its toll is immense, but also because it is solvable today, with the tools we already have. It doesn’t require new technologies or the reordering of global economies. It just requires our will to act. And the benefits are enormous. By preventing lead exposure, our work improves health, educational outcomes, and economic development. Children can reach their full cognitive and emotional potential, and societies are better equipped to solve the next set of challenges they face.

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Pure Earth’s 5-Phase Approach to Solving Lead Poisoning

Pure Earth implements evidence-based solutions in collaboration with governments and trusted public health partners. Our five-phase approach draws on more than 25 years of experience protecting people from lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries, and is tailored to each local context, with phases that can overlap and be adapted to country-specific priorities.

Reveal the Crisis
Pinpoint Exposure Sources
Reduce Exposure
Mobilize Collective Will
Build Durable Systems