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U.S. Department of State | Public Domain

Right Livelihood Awards 2026

Discover the 2026 Right Livelihood Award winners (Alternative Nobel Prize). Learn about the visionary women and organisations fighting for justice and human rights.

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U.S. Department of State | Public Domain

RLA 2026 LAUREATES - Challenging Autocracy, Patriarchy & AI Bias

The 2026 Right Livelihood Award goes to women and women-led organisations confronting the world’s most entrenched power structures: authoritarian rule, patriarchal violence, and unchecked AI development. Their common thread is resistance to systems that push people to the margins, and a shared insistence on putting people back at the centre.

The 2026 Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”, goes to:

Jalila Haider from Pakistan “for breaking barriers, as the first female lawyer from her Hazara community, to challenge ethnic, state and patriarchal persecution, guided by the conviction that no human being is illegal,”

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Flickr | African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)

Rural Women’s Assembly “for organising rural women across Southern Africa into a united force defending land, seed and bodily autonomy against corporate and patriarchal dispossession,”

Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) “for building and safeguarding Georgian democracy and sustaining civic power in the face of an autocratic crackdown,” and

Timnit Gebru from the United States of America “for challenging concentrated power in artificial intelligence and pioneering digital technology rooted in justice, lived experience and human agency.”

Ole von Uexkull, Executive Director of Right Livelihood, says:

“A system built to serve the few was never going to hold. This year, we honour women who refused to wait for permission. They are rewriting the rules that autocrats, patriarchs, and Silicon Valley’s most powerful men assumed were theirs to write alone.”

GYLA is the first Laureate to receive the Right Livelihood Award from Georgia.

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In addition to being available for one-on-one interviews, the Laureates are holding consecutive online press conferences today, September 30. Register for the press conferences.

  • 10:00 CEST (08:00 GMT): Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA)
  • 11:00 CEST (09:00 GMT): Rural Women’s Assembly
  • 14:00 CEST (12:00 GMT): Jalila Haider
  • 18:00 CEST (16:00 GMT): Timnit Gebru

Author: Right Livelihood Foundation, Date: 30.09.26