The Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation conferred this year's Else Kröner-Fresenius Award for Development Cooperation in Medicine on the association PHASE Austria. The Foundation awarded this prize in recognition of the association's programme for improving mother and child health care in western Nepal.

The prize money of EUR 100,000 was presented in Berlin at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in the presence of former Federal President Horst Köhler and the Chairman of the Association of German Foundations, Michael Göring. Speaking at the ceremony, Parliamentary State Secretary Thomas Silberhorn said: 'With its commitment to better medical care for mothers and infants in extremely remote regions of Nepal, the winner has been doing magnificent work over the past decade.'