Today, Pure Earth has been named a grantee of The Audacious Project, receiving a major multi-year investment to help governments in more than 20 countries reduce lead exposure at scale and protect over 500 million children by 2033.
We now begin one of the most ambitious global responses to lead poisoning prevention in history.
Housed at TED, The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative dedicated to supporting bold ideas with the potential to change the world. This is not simply a grant. It is transformational funding designed to accelerate national action and create effective public health systems that prevent lead exposure before harm occurs.
A Preventable Crisis at Global Scale
An estimated one billion children worldwide are affected by lead poisoning. The damage is silent and irreversible: impaired brain development, reduced learning capacity, lower lifetime earnings, and increased risk of chronic disease. More than 90% of affected children live in low- and middle-income countries.
Lead exposure also affects maternal and newborn health and contributes to cardiovascular disease, resulting in an estimated 3.5 million premature deaths annually, more than malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV combined.
Beyond its human toll, the economic cost is staggering. Lead poisoning is estimated to cost the global economy $6 trillion each year, nearly seven percent of global GDP. It accounts for more than 20% of the learning gap between children in high-income and low-income countries.
Lead exposure quietly undermines progress across nearly every development goal. And yet, the crisis remains dramatically undermeasured and underfunded.
From Data to Durable Systems
Through this Audacious investment, Pure Earth will work with governments and partners across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to strengthen national systems that prevent exposure.
The initiative will follow our five-phase approach and support countries to:
- Reveal the crisis: Generate nationally representative blood lead level data
- Pinpoint exposure sources: Identify major sources of exposure, including contaminated consumer products and unsafe lead recycling
- Reduce exposure: Implement targeted, government-led interventions, from regulatory reform to environmental remediation
- Mobilize collective will: Provide education on the impacts of lead exposure and transparently share data, results, and strategies with stakeholders
- Build durable systems: Embed surveillance and prevention systems within government ministries
This approach has been honed through more than 20 years of experience working with countries to reduce lead exposure.
“Lead poisoning is entirely preventable, yet it continues to harm children on a massive scale, with exposure levels often unmeasured and unaddressed,” said Drew McCartor, President of Pure Earth. “This Audacious investment allows us to build on more than 25 years of experience and expand partnerships with governments to establish durable national systems that reduce exposure and protect generations of children.”
Pure Earth’s new initiative builds on decades of evidence showing that decisive national action can reduce lead exposure in just a few years. For example, following the phase-out of leaded gasoline, the United States reduced children’s blood lead levels by more than 75 percent, generating hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefits through improved cognitive outcomes and productivity.
A Global Inflection Point
This investment arrives at a critical moment.
Global awareness and political momentum are accelerating through the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future, launched in 2024 to align governments, funders, and implementers around a shared roadmap to end childhood lead poisoning.
“We are encouraged by this catalytic opportunity—not only for the increased resources, fresh energy, and global urgency it brings to ending childhood lead poisoning, but for what it signals about sustained momentum toward real change for communities,” said Abdullah Fadil, Director, Partnership for a Lead-Free Future Secretariat. “We are excited to work alongside partners on this effort to drive progress toward the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future’s collective goal of ending childhood lead poisoning.”
Early leadership from Bloomberg Philanthropies and Coefficient Giving helped catalyze international action around one of the world’s largest preventable environmental health threats. The work supported through The Audacious Project will both advance and be propelled by this growing global movement.
“For more than two decades, Pure Earth has quietly but powerfully built the infrastructure for change,” said Ambassador Samantha Power, former Administrator of USAID. “Their approach combines scientific rigor with practical delivery and reflects the actual needs of affected countries. The potential impact of this initiative is profound and goes beyond public health, touching virtually every major development goal, and over time unlocking significant untapped educational, and ultimately economic potential.”
“Through our recently launched Lead Poisoning Prevention Initiative, we are helping governments strengthen policies, expand testing and surveillance, and eliminate the most dangerous sources of lead,” said Dr. Kelly Henning, who leads public health programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies. “The Audacious Project’s new investment in Pure Earth builds on a shared focus on strengthening government capacity, and together these efforts can accelerate progress and scale solutions to deliver lasting health benefits for communities globally.”
“Pure Earth occupies a rare and essential role in the global lead ecosystem,” said Dr. Tom Hird of Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy). “They are uniquely capable of supporting governments end-to-end, from national surveillance and exposure source identification to regulatory and behavioral change. Pure Earth has been one of our most significant and longest-standing grantees in this space, and we are pleased to continue our collaboration by joining The Audacious Project funders to help expand this critical work.”
Catalyzing Human Progress
We prioritize lead poisoning not only because its toll is immense, but also because it is solvable today, with the tools we already have. By preventing exposure at scale, countries increase the effectiveness of investments in education, health, and economic growth. Children can reach their full cognitive and emotional potential, and societies will be better equipped to solve the next set of challenges they face.
This Audacious idea will not be achieved alone. Pure Earth is working in collaboration with the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future, UNICEF, Vital Strategies, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and national governments around the world.
Together, we have an opportunity to protect more than 500 million children by 2033, and in doing so, unlock human potential on a scale rarely seen in global health.
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