This post is written by Angela Bernhardt, Pure Earth VP of Communications.
This has been an unprecedented week for Pure Earth, and all organizations across the globe working to solve the childhood lead poisoning crisis. Pure Earth Founder, Rich Fuller and Executive Director, Drew McCartor were in attendance September 23rd at the launch of the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future – a public-private partnership dedicated to tackling this neglected yet solvable issue affecting one-in-two children in lower income countries.
Pure Earth Executive Director Drew McCartor (left) and President and Founder Richard Fuller (right) at the launch of Partnership for a Lead-Free Future on September 23rd.
The Partnership for a Lead Free Future (PLF) kicks off with 26 member countries, 38 partner organizations, and $150 million in funding with the ambition to end childhood lead poisoning in developing nations by 2040.
At the event hosted by USAID and UNICEF, an array of global leaders articulated with passion and conviction, the scale of the problem, the urgent need for action to protect children, and the range of effective interventions ready to be scaled up to end lead poisoning.
Speakers included:
Dr. Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States
Excelentísimo Señor Luis Rodolfo Abinader Corona, Presidente de la República Dominicana
His Excellency Mr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi and Commander-in-Chief of the Malawi Defence Force
His Excellency Mr. Ramchandra Paudel, President of Nepal
Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme
Ajay Banga, President World Bank
Alexander Berger, CEO of Open Philanthropy
Aliko Dangote, Dangote Foundation
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization
Samantha Power, Administrator, USAID
Catherine Russell, Executive Director, UNICEF
Anita Zaidi, President of Gender Equality, Gates Foundation
We were honored to submit a video for the launch event focused on our work in Bangladesh, Transforming Battery Recycling: Protecting Future Generations.
It was a “pinch me” moment for all of us at Pure Earth. We first started raising the alarm about lead pollution in developing countries 18 years ago with our first World’s Worst Polluted Places report series, and continued for a 10 year publication stretch. More recently, our co-publication in 2020 with UNICEF, The Toxic Truth, catapulted the issue into the consciousness of the global health and development community.
For two decades, Pure Earth teams across 50 countries have been collecting data, developing interventions, measuring environmental and health impacts, estimating ROI, and advocating with the international community and funders to recognize and prioritize the lead issue. To see our collective efforts come to fruition in such a big way, is quite frankly, stunning.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post describing the initiative, USAID Administrator Samantha Power and Open Philanthropy CEO Alexander Berger wrote,
“As the leader of the world’s largest development agency and the head of one of the world’s biggest philanthropies, never in our careers have we seen such a compelling, low-cost opportunity to make such a massive impact on a major global killer.”
We are beyond grateful to USAID Administrator Samantha Power for recognizing and championing this issue on the global stage, and to Open Philanthropy for their belief in and support of our work.
On the heels of the formation of the PLF, Open Philanthropy launched the Lead Exposure Action Fund (LEAF), a collaborative fund to accelerate progress toward eliminating lead exposure through strategic grants for measurement, mitigation, and mainstreaming.
As a recipient of a new LEAF grant, Pure Earth will measure and mitigate lead exposure in 10+ countries and Indian states, targeting sources such as spices, ceramics, cosmetics, metal cookware, and lead-acid batteries. Select projects include working with the Indian government to eliminate lead in spices in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the first randomized controlled trial replacing lead-contaminated products in households, and interventions to address contaminated cosmetics and metal cookware in Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
“This grant from the Lead Exposure Action Fund (LEAF) is a game changer, but still just a fraction of the funding required. We are hopeful that our LEAF grant will leverage the additional private and public resources needed to accelerate and expand our critical lead mitigation activities targeting some of the world’s most impacted communities,” says Carol Sumkin, Pure Earth’s V.P. of Development.
We heartily congratulate our fellow inaugural grantees—the Center for Global Development, Pahle India Foundation, Lead Exposure Elimination Project, and World Health Summit, and look forward to years of impactful collaborations.
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Watch the recording of the event: The Partnership for a Lead Free Future: Join the launch at the UN General Assembly
Read more about the formation of the fund: Announcing the Lead Exposure Action Fund