Runa Khan, founder and executive director of Bangladeshi social development organisation Friendship, has been named a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award 2026 for her decades-long efforts to improve the lives of people living in remote, river-eroded and climate-vulnerable communities across Bangladesh.
The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) announced the 2026 recipients in Manila on August 31. Alongside Runa Khan, Singaporean diplomat and international law expert Tommy Koh and Myanmar activist Bo Kyi have been selected for this year’s award.
The awards will be formally presented at the Metropolitan Theater in Manila on November 15.
According to the foundation, Runa Khan is being honoured for her deep empathy for some of Bangladesh’s poorest communities and for her courage, vision and determination in establishing and leading Friendship.
“In her hands, privilege became not an entitlement, but a responsibility; not a family legacy to protect, but a gift to be shared so that others, too, might have the chance to live with hope, opportunity, and dignity,” the foundation said.
Expressing her gratitude, Runa Khan said she accepted the award with “great happiness and profound humility,” dedicating the recognition to the communities Friendship serves and to the organisation’s staff and volunteers.
“There is no leader who walks alone, so it is an honour for me to receive this on behalf of the unaddressed communities, who allow us to walk beside them; and on behalf of my Friendship family whose tireless devotion makes this work possible every day,” she said.
She also thanked those who had supported her journey over the past 25 years, including her children, and described the award as “a wonderful responsibility.”
RMAF President Susanna B Afan said this year’s theme, “A World for All,” encourages reflection on the kind of world people want to build together amid growing uncertainty, divisions and complex global challenges.
She said the work of the 2026 awardees demonstrates how individual choices and actions can have an impact far beyond their own lives and communities. Their stories, she added, underline the shared responsibility to ensure that circumstances do not determine the limits of a person’s life or deprive anyone of the opportunity to live with hope, happiness and dignity.
Friendship began operations in 2002 with a hospital ship designed to provide healthcare to underserved communities living on chars, or sandbar islands, along Bangladesh’s Jamuna River, one of the country’s most climate-vulnerable areas.
Over the years, the organisation has expanded significantly. It now operates seven hospital ships, two land-based hospitals, around 550 mobile clinics and a network of 700 trained Friendship Community Medic Aides.
Its climate adaptation programmes have included establishing solar-powered villages and restoring more than 200 hectares of mangrove forests. The organisation has also trained more than 10,000 volunteers in disaster rescue and relief operations.
Through 137 Sustainable Economic Development Hubs, more than 205,000 people have gained access to new employment opportunities.
What began as a single floating hospital has since developed into a large social-purpose organisation that reaches around 7.5 million people annually through programmes covering healthcare, education, climate action, sustainable economic development, inclusive citizenship and cultural preservation.
The Ramon Magsaysay Award is named after Ramon Magsaysay, the seventh president of the Philippines, who died in a plane crash on March 17, 1957. The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation was established later that year, and the award was first presented in 1958.
