Norway’s former Prime Minister, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, will be delivering the closing keynote plenary at the International Co-operative Alliance’s Global Conference and General Assembly in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
A medical doctor and Master of Public Health (MPH), Dr Brundtland is known as the Mother of Sustainability. Under her guidance in 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development produced the landmark report Our Common Future, also know as the Brundtland report. The document coined the concept of sustainable development.
Dr Brundtland graduated Harvard School of Public Health in the USA in 1965 and worked as a doctor in Norway until 1974, when she was appointed minister of the environment.
She went on to lead the country as prime minister in 1981, remaining in government for more than 10 years. She was a key figure in Norwegian politics until 1996 when she resigned from the Labour Party to make way for a new generation of leaders.
Dr Brundtland was chair of the World Health Organisation between 1998-2003 and UN special envoy on climate change between 2007-2010.
She is currently deputy chair of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders working together for peace and human rights. In Malaysia she will talk about the implications for building a more sustainable future as a united movement.
