Graça Machel named to UN social panel

2012-08-01 13:02

AP

Geneva - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday named a queen, a former president, a Nobel Peace prize winner, a corporate mogul and among them former president Nelson Mandela's wife Graça Machel, to a 26-strong panel to recommend new global social and environment goals.

Ban has given the panel a year to draw up what he called "a bold" new development vision to put to the 193 UN member states to replace the Millennium Development Goals after 2015.

Presidents Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain had already been appointed to head the search.

Ban on Tuesday named personalities ranging from Queen Rania of Jordan and German former president Horst Kohler to Tawakel Karman, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her activism in the uprising in Yemen, and the mayor of Istanbul Kadir Topbas.

Japan's former prime minister Naoto Kan, three serving foreign ministers - Kim Sung-Hwan of South Korea, Patricia Espinosa of Mexico and Maria Angela Holguin of Colombia - and two finance ministers Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Emilia Pires of East Timor - are also on the panel.

The corporate world is represented by Paul Polman, the Dutch chief executive of Unilever and Betty Maina, chief executive of Kenya's Association of Manufacturers.

Targets won't be achieved

"I look forward to the panel's recommendations on a global post-2015 agenda with shared responsibilities for all countries and with the fight against poverty and sustainable development at its core," Ban said.

The Millennium Development Goals aimed to halve extreme poverty and eradicate many preventable diseases and stop the spread of Aids by 2015. Many of the eight targets will not be achieved however.

A list of the members of the panel:

- Fulbert Gero Amoussouga, head of the Economic Analysis Unit for Benin government

- Vanessa Petrelli Correa, president of Brazil's Institute for Applied Economic Research

- Wang Yingfan, former vice foreign minister for China and member of the UN Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group

- Maria Angela Holguin, foreign minister for Colombia

- Gisela Alonso, president of the Cuban Agency of Environment

- Jean-Michel Severino, former director general of the French Development Agency

- Horst Kohler, former president of Germany and managing director of the International Monetary Fund

- Naoto Kan, former prime minister of Japan who led his country's emergency response after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant

- Queen Rania of Jordan and leading humanitarian campaigner

- Betty Maina, chief executive of Kenya's Association of Manufacturers

- Abhijit Banerjee, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States

- Andris Piebalgs, development commissioner for European Commission and former minister in Latvia

- Patricia Espinosa, foreign minister for Mexico

- Paul Polman of the Netherlands, chief executive of Unilever and former chief financial officer of Nestle

- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, finance minister for Nigeria and former managing director of World Bank

- Elvira Nabiullina, economic advisor to President Vladimir Putin of Russia

- Graça Machel, former minister in Mozambique, human rights activist and wife of South Africa's post-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela

- Kim Sung-Hwan, foreign minister for South Korea

- Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden's minister for international development

- Emilia Pires, finance minister for East Timor

- Kadir Topbas, mayor of Istanbul

- John Podesta, chairperson of the US Centre for American Progress and former advisor to President Bill Clinton

- Tawakel Karman, winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her activism during the uprising against Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh

- AFP