KIEL, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, founder of the annual Global Economic Symposium, will present its 2013 Global Economy Prize to Gro Harlem Brundtland, Joseph E, Stiglitz, and Mohammed E. Ibrahim here on 23 June.
The Global Economy Prize has been awarded every year since 2005 by the Institute for Global Economy, the Schleswig-Holstein Chamber of Commerce and the Land Capital Kiel.
The prize is designed to give an impetus to overcoming global economic challenges. It is awarded during every Kiel Week at the end of June to a high-ranking politician, renowned economist and an outstanding business person – figures distinguished by their forward thinking and success in communicating global economic solutions, their ability and readiness to enter into dialogue beyond the borders of their specialty, and their advocacy of a socially responsible society founded on personal accountability.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, born in Oslo in 1939, is a politician and a physician. At age 41, she was the first woman and the youngest person to be elected prime minister of Norway. From 1998 to 2003, she was the director-general of the World Health Organization. Currently, she is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, the Club of Madrid, and the Global Elders, which she helped to found together with Nelson Mandela in 2007. She was also a member of the preparatory body of the Rio +10 conference in 2012.
She joined the Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking (AUF), the youth organization of the Norwegian labor party (Det norske Arbeiderparti – DnA), at the age of seven. Later in life, she earned a doctorate in medicine at the University of Oslo, in 1963, and a master’s degree in public health at Harvard, in 1965.
Thereafter, she served as an advisor in the Norwegian Health and Social Services Ministry. Following this, she worked for the city of Oslo and Oslo’s public school of health services. In 1974, she was elected to the executive board of the Labor Party. From 1974 to 1979, she served as the minister of the environment, and in 1981 she became the prime minister. As prime minister, she appointed eight women to her first 18- minister cabinet). She then served two subsequent terms as prime minister, from 1986 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1996. She was a proponent of making AIDS and malaria medications available to people in developing countries. She also coordinated the measures taken against the SARS epidemic. Further, in 1987 she published Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, which put sustainability on the international political agenda.
She has been honored numerous times for her contributions to the environment, health, and democracy. She was awarded the Indira Gandhi Prize in 1989, the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal in 1991, and the Charlemagne Prize of the city of Aachen in 1994. In 2007, she was appointed a UN special envoy for climate change.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, born in Gary, Indiana, in 1943, is an American economist. Together with George A. Akerlof and Michael Spence, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001. He was specifically awarded the prize for his work on markets with asymmetrical information. He is also the lead author of the Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Currently, he is a professor at the University of Columbia, where he is the chairman of the Committee on Global Thought. Further, he is the chairman of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester, and he is a member of numerous bodies, such as the Acumen Fund and Resources for the Future.
Dr. Stilglitz was a professor of economics at Yale from 1970 to 1974, at Stanford from 1974 to 1976 and again from 1988 to 2001, at Oxford from 1976 to 1979, and at Princeton from 1979 to 1988. He served as the vice-president and chief economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000. He was also one of the founders of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which was established in 2009 to develop new approaches in economics.
His work on asymmetrical information has changed economics fundamentally. It helps explain why markets fail and helps in determining whether particular government interventions may be warranted. Time Magazine in 2001 named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Mohammed Ibrahim, born in Sudan in 1946, is an African entrepreneur. He founded Celtel, which is a mobile communications company that operates in 23 African and Asian countries. He also founded the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the mission of which is to promote good governance in African countries.
Dr. Ibrahim earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alexandria, a master’s degree from the University of Bradford, and a Ph.D. in mobile communications from the University of Birmingham. After working for various telecommunication companies, he founded MSI, a software and consulting company, in 1989. In 1998, MSI spun off MSI Cellular Investments (Celtel). Ibrahim sold Celtel in 2005 in order to found the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in 2006. In 2007, the foundation inaugurated the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, a cash prize amounting to US$5 million, which is awarded to elected African heads of state who have improved their countries economically, socially, and as regards health, and who have passed on their office to their successors in a democratic manner. The foundation also annually publishes the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which ranks the performance of African countries according to four criteria: safety and the rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic activity, and human development. The index is intended to be a tool that civil societies can use to hold their governments to account. The foundation also organizes annual discussion forums at which topics relevant to Africa are discussed. Further, it provides scholarships to African students.
Mohammed Ibrahim has been awarded numerous honors and prizes, including the GSM Association (a global organization of mobile phone operators) Chairman's Award in 2007, and the Telecommunication Industry's Highest Accolade and the BNP Paribas Prize for Philanthropy in 2008. In this same year, Time Magazine included him in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
About the Kiel Institute for the World Economy:
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy is an international centre for research in global economic affairs, economic policy consulting, economic education and documentation, which creates solutions to urgent problems in global economic affairs; advises decision-makers in policy, business, and society; and informs the public on important developments in international economic policy. It is ranked in the top four international economic policy think tanks in the Think Tanks and Civil Cocieties Program of the University of Pennsylvania.
http://www.ifw-kiel.de/kiel-institute-for-the-world-economy/view
About the Global Economic Prize:
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy awarded the first Global Economic Prize in 2005, in the presence of the German Federal President, Professor Horst Köhler, to Dr. Wim Kok, Former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.,Professor. Robert Mundell, Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking, Chief Executive Officer of Ferdinand Porsche AG. The prize has been awarded each year since 2005.
http://www.ifw-kiel.de/events-1/global-economy-prize/weltwirtschaftlicher-preis-2005
About the Global Economic Symposium 2013:
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy launched the Global Economic Symposium in 2008. It is a research based and solution oriented annual conference that addresses significant policy challenges and formulates socially desirable responses to issues that require transnational cooperation between policy makers, business executives, academics and civil society. The Global Economic Symposium 2013 will take place in Kiel, Federal Republic of Germany, on October 1 and 2, 2013.
http://www.global-economic-symposium.org/about-the-ges/objectives