Gro Harlem Brundtland

Gro Harlem Brundtland (2009)

Gro Harlem Brundtland (born April 20, 1939 in Bærum ) is a Norwegian politician and was three times Prime Minister (1981, 1986-1989 and 1990-1996). From 1981 to 1992 she was the first woman to chair the social democratic Arbeiderpartiet (Ap).

Live and act

Brundtland was born as the daughter of the medicine professor and minister Gudmund Harlem (1917–1988) and the Swedish-born Inga Brynolf (1918–2005). Her sister Hanne Harlem (* 1964) also became a minister. Gro Harlem studied medicine at the University of Oslo and graduated in 1963 with the state examination. By 1965 she studied public health at Harvard University . She then practiced as a doctor in Norway for a few years.

In 1960 she married the political scientist Arne Olav Brundtland (* 1936), with whom she has four children.

Brundtland got involved early on in the youth organization of the Arbeiderpartiet, the Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking , AUF. Between 1974 and 1979 she was the Norwegian Minister for the Environment . On February 4, 1981, she became the first woman to become prime minister , but her government failed in October of the same year. From 1977 to 1997 she was a member of the Norwegian national parliament in Storting , where she was represented by party colleagues for most of the time because of her membership in the government.

She chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development (German: Brundtland Commission ) of the United Nations, where she developed a broad political concept for sustainable development . The final report known as the Brundtland Report, entitled Our Common Future , was published in April 1987.

Gro Harlem Brundtland (1989)

Between May 9, 1986 and October 16, 1989 (this cabinet became internationally known for the fact that eight of the 18 ministerial posts were held by women) and November 3, 1990 and October 25, 1996, Brundtland was again Prime Minister of Norway. In 1996 she was followed by Thorbjørn Jagland . She resigned from her position as chairman of the Arbeiderpartiet in 1992.

In May 1998 she was elected Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). After the regular five-year term, she was replaced on July 21, 2003 by Jong-wook Lee . Brundtland was named Policy Leader of the Year by the American science magazine Scientific American in 2003 for coordinating a global campaign against the viral disease SARS . She then got a teaching position at Harvard University as a Health Policy Fellow .

In May 2007, Brundtland was appointed special envoy on climate change by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, together with Chile's former President Ricardo Lagos and South Korea's later Prime Minister Han Seung-soo .

She is also a founding member of Global Elders, launched in 2007 . There she is involved, inter alia. against child marriage .

Brundtland supports the Global Zero movement, which aims to abolish all nuclear weapons worldwide . She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and, since 2009, of the Academia Europaea .

Brundtland was also supposed to fall victim to the terrorist attacks in Norway on July 22, 2011, but she was unscathed because she had left the Utøya crime scene shortly before. Brundtland lives in Nice and Norway.

Trivia

In the Oscar-nominated Norwegian feature film Elling, based on the novel by Ingvar Ambjørnsen , the main character proves to be an ardent admirer of the “mother country” Brundtland.

Honors

1988 Indira Gandhi Peace Prize from the Government of India

1991 Dag Hammarskjöld Medal of Honor from the German Society for the United Nations (DGVN)

1994 Charlemagne Prize of the City of Aachen

2002 Four Freedoms Award , in the Freedom from Need category

2002 member of the American Philosophical Society

In 2013, the honorary award of the German Sustainability Award went to "the initiator of the global sustainability dialogue Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland."

2013 World Economic Prize

2014 Tang Prize for Sustainable Development

2016 Honorary member of the Norsk Kvinnesaksforening (Norwegian Women's Rights Association)

literature

Bettina Flitner : women with visions - 48 Europeans. With texts by Alice Schwarzer . 2nd Edition. Knesebeck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-89660-357-4 , p. 50-53 .