The winners were announced at the Goalkeepers Awards ceremony, which was hosted by Tumelo Mothotoane, senior anchor at South African news broadcaster eNCA.

Award presenters included co-founder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Fund, Malala Yousafzai and entertainer and founder of Unicorn Island Lilly Singh.

The ceremony featured special performances by George the Poet and Grammy-nominated singer and performer Somi.

The winners included:
  • Radhika Batra, co-founder of the nonprofit organisation Every Infant Matters
  • Zahra Joya, journalist from Afghanistan who founded and self-funded Rukhshana Media
  • Vanessa Nakate, climate justice activist from Uganda and founder of the Africa-based Rise Up Movement and the Green Schools Project, and
  • Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

"While the world is far from being on track to reach the Global Goals by 2030, there is still cause for optimism," says Blessing Omakwu, head of Goalkeepers. "We've seen how human ingenuity and innovation can lead to game-changing breakthroughs and progress toward our shared goals, and that's exactly what we see in 2022's Goalkeepers Global Goals Award winners."

"Each shows us how women are leading the way in coming up with innovative solutions to move the numbers in the right direction so that more people can lead healthy and productive lives," adds Omakwu.

The 2022 Global Goalkeeper Award, which was presented by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, recognises a leader who has driven progress on a global scale toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The 2022 award was presented to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission who, according to the awards, has shown determination in leading both the European Union (EU) and global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The ranges from crisis management to long-term recovery efforts.

According to the awards, she is a champion of global health and equitable access and von der Leyen was instrumental in the creation of ACT-A. A global collaboration to accelerate development, production and equitable access to Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines, says the foundation. 

She led the efforts of the European Union to support lower-income countries in responding to and recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, including a commitment of €1-billion from the EU to boost manufacturing capacity in Africa in order to increase access to:
  • vaccines
  • medicines, and
  • health technologies.

In June 2020 at the Global Vaccine Summit, von der Leyen also announced a new European Commission's contribution of €300-million to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. This is more than the sum of all previous EU contributions to Gavi.

The 2022 Campaign Award, which was presented by Malala Yousafzai, celebrates a campaign that has raised awareness or built a community by inspiring action and creating change.

The 2022 award was presented to Vanessa Nakate of Uganda for her work to highlight the disproportionate impacts of climate change. Her work brings much-needed attention to the inequalities that it exacerbates — especially for women and girls in Africa, says the foundation.

Nakate is the founder of the Rise Up Climate Movement, which aims to amplify the voices of activists from Africa and across the world. She is also the founder of the Green Schools Project, which addresses energy poverty in rural schools in Uganda using economical and sustainable solutions to equip 24 000 schools with solar panels and eco stoves.

Nakate is progressing in the following:
  • SDG 4: Education
  • SDG 5: Gender Equality
  • SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities, and
  • SDG 13: Climate Action.

The 2022 Changemaker Award, which was presented by Angelina Jolie, celebrates an individual who has inspired change using personal experience or from a position of leadership.

The 2022 award was presented to Zahra Joya of Afghanistan for her work to ensure women's stories in her home country are reported on and reach the attention of the wider public.

Joya is the founder of Rukhshana Media, an online news agency focused exclusively on covering issues that affect the women of Afghanistan — the first national news organisation of its kind. Joya is progressing in SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 16: Peace Justice and Strong Institutions.

The 2022 Progress Award, which was presented by Lilly Singh, celebrates an individual who supports progress via a science, technology, digital, or business initiative.

The 2022's award was presented to Radhika Batra of India for her work to tackle health inequalities by providing last-mile health solutions to disadvantaged children.

Batra founded Every Infant Matters when she was working as a resident doctor in a hospital in the slums of New Delhi. Since launching in 2017, the organisation has:
  • saved 74 173 children from blindness
  • given prenatal vitamins to more than 40 000 disadvantaged women, and
  • provided education to prevent gender inequality and the stigma of TB, HIV / AIDS and blindness to more than 65 000 families.

Batra is progressing SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being and SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities.

The announcement of the Goalkeepers Global Goals Award winners follows the release of the Gates Foundation's sixth annual Goalkeepers report, The Future of Progress, which is co-authored by foundation co-chairs Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates.

Despite significant setbacks caused by overlapping global crises, the report underscores opportunities to:
  • accelerate progress toward ending poverty
  • fighting inequality, and
  • reducing the impacts of climate change.

In their respective essays, French Gates and Gates call for new approaches to achieving gender equality and food security.

The duo concludes that dramatic progress has been seen in dealing with the HIV / AIDS epidemic — a nearly 60% decline in annual deaths between 2000 and 2020 — as an example of what can happen when the world invests in long-term solutions and innovative approaches to entrenched issues.

Individuals are encouraged to view the Goalkeepers Global Goals Award winners here.

For more information, visit www.gatesfoundation.org. You can also follow the Goalkeepers Global Goals Awards on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.