22 May 2011 - Linda Norgrove posthumously received this week the Green Star Award, a joint initiative of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Green Cross International.

Norgrove was honoured for her “outstanding leadership and commitment in responding to the severe environmental challenges facing Afghanistan and for her dedicated efforts to avert future environmental emergencies,” according to a UNEP press release.

Between 2005 and 2008, Norgrove was responsible for the United Nations Office for Project Services’ (UNOPS) Environment Programme in Afghanistan seeking to improve the livelihoods of rural populations through building their capacity to restore and manage forests, rangelands and watersheds.

More recently, Norgrove was regional director for DAI in Jalalabad where she oversaw a USAID project designed to create jobs and strengthen local Afghan leadership and economies in unstable and vulnerable areas.

“Linda was a hero of project implementation. She got things done. She wanted to work with remote communities and see some real change in the livelihoods of poor Afghan people. She respected our culture; she was an Afghan lady,” her colleague Hamidullah Akbari told The Linda Norgrove Foundation.

Norgrove was kidnapped in the eastern Kunar province in September 2010 and died during a rescue operation two weeks later. Her parents accepted the award on 18 May in Bern, Switzerland, on her behalf.

By UNAMA Kabul