[1][2] The inaugural George Harrison Global Citizen Award was posthumously awarded to George Harrison during the “World on Stage” event at the 2016 Global Citizen Festival in New York.

[3] In 2017, the George Harrison Award was given to Annie Lennox for her dedication to humanitarian work at the 2017 Global Citizen Festival in New York.

[4][5] At the 2018 Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 event in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Global Poverty Project presented their first ever Global Citizen Prize for a World Leader, to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and the Cisco Youth Leadership Award, given to Wawira Njiru.

[7][8] The following prizes were presented during the ceremony, which was broadcast by NBC on December 20:[9] Global Citizen of the Year - Richard Curtis Global Artist of the Year - Sting Global Citizen Prize for World Leader - Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Global Citizen Prize for Business Leader - Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani Founder/CEO Cisco Youth Leadership Award - Priya Prakash The Global Citizen Prize Awards were broadcast (on NBC in the United States, and the CBC in Canada) and streamed live on December 19, 2020, and were hosted again by John Legend.

[15] Global Citizen Prize for World Leader - Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia The winners were:[16]