Washington — The United States recognized exceptional development projects and initiatives undertaken by the multilateral development banks at the second annual Development Impact Honors ceremony, held in Washington on July 25.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew presented the awards before an audience of policymakers and leaders in development and business.

"The projects we are honoring today are new high-impact approaches to international development, and they reinforce our values -- whether it is developing clean energy sources, advancing women's economic equality, promoting food security or helping the most vulnerable populations," Lew said, according to a Treasury Department news release the same day.

"There has never been a more critical time to focus on international development," Treasury Department Under Secretary Lael Brainard, who also spoke at the ceremony, said in a blog post the same day.

"Multilateral development banks (MDBs), in particular, exemplify the critical role that development initiatives play in promoting economic growth and reducing global poverty," Brainard said.

Projects were judged in a number of areas, including their effectiveness, the focus and quality of their work and their success in overcoming development challenges. Many of the projects specifically focus on empowering vulnerable groups such as women and youth through programs that provide economic opportunities and health support.

The following honorees were selected by an interagency group of senior U.S. officials from more than 40 development projects nominated for the award:

- Côte d'Ivoire Project -- Emerging from Conflict -- Gender-Based Violence Recovery (African Development Bank). This project helped to bring the problem of gender-based violence out of the shadows and allowed more effectively coordinated care for victims. It used a holistic approach to modify social perceptions, change behaviors and involve men in the fight against gender-based violence. It directly assisted 3,500 women and girls and reached 1.5 million people to advocate against perpetrators of gender-based violence. It supported 250 women's associations that are now generating economic opportunities for women.

- Uganda Community Agricultural Infrastructure Program (African Development Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development). By involving communities in the planning, building and maintenance of new agricultural infrastructure, this project took an innovative approach. It used local contractors, built community capacity, created jobs for rural youth and women and collected fees to fund community maintenance crews. It helped build nearly 4,000 kilometers of rural roads, 74 rural markets and scores of agro-processing units such as coffee hullers and maize mills. It raised farmers' incomes, cut transportation costs and travel times, and reduced post-harvest losses.

- Bhutan Green Power Project (Asian Development Bank). This project exemplifies a well-designed initiative that simultaneously meets the goals of economic growth, rural development and environmental protection. Bhutan partnered with the private sector to create a hydropower facility with no dam or reservoir, to replace fossil fuel-generated power with clean sources of energy. It extended hydroelectricity grids to more than 8,700 rural households and facilities and installed solar power systems for schools, health clinics and community centers in remote, mountainous terrain.

- Mexico Training and Employment Program, Phase II (Inter-American Development Bank). This project enlisted private employers into a program to provide on-the-job training, providing hundreds of thousands of people with stipends for training, helping obtain employment for 1.5 million people and creating a website where 7 million could search for information on employment or training. Approximately 70 percent of the beneficiaries were women, and the project also provided training for vulnerable groups such as youth, older workers and disabled workers.

- Post-Earthquake Assessment Project -- Haiti (World Bank Group). This project helped re-establish basic services following the disastrous effects of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. It relied on about 300 national civil servants, training them to conduct expert-level assessments while retaining them under the authority of the Haitian Ministry of Public Works to promote the long-term strengthening of national institutions. These individuals rapidly evaluated more than 400,000 buildings, paving the way for reoccupation and rehabilitation of the devastated region.

For more on the honorees, see the Treasury Department news release.