Angela Merkel awarded the 2022 UNESCO Peace Prize for her efforts to welcome refugees

Angela Merkel awarded the 2022 UNESCO Peace Prize for her efforts to welcome refugees

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been awarded the 2022 UNESCO Peace Prize for her efforts to welcome refugees.

Important Points

• All jury members, including jury chairman and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege, were impressed by Merkel’s courageous decision to welcome more than 1.2 million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea in 2015.
• Additionally, the jury awarded an honorable mention to Julien Lusanz for her commitment to women victims of sexual violence. She is best known for her work in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where she condemned rape as a “weapon of war”.

About Angela Merkel

• Angela Merkel (full name- Angela Dorothea Kasner) was born on 17 July 1954 in Hamburg, West Germany.
• She is trained as a physicist and had entered politics after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
• In 2005 national elections, Merkel became Germany’s first female chancellor, and one of the leading figures of the European Union.
• Prior to entering into politics, she was working as research scientist. She was elected as first women Chancellor of Germany in 2005 and since then is in office.
•  In October 2018, Merkel announced that she would stand down as Leader of the CDU at the party convention, and would not seek a fifth term as Chancellor in the 2021 federal election.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize

UNESCO’s Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize was created in 1989 to honour living individuals and active public or private bodies or institutions that have made significant contribution to peace. The Prize was established by a resolution supported by 120 countries and was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO at its 25th session.

In the past, Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize has been granted to internationally renowned personalities like Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, King Juan Carlos of Spain, former US president Jimmy Carter and Shimon Peres. For the first time, the award goes to a mayor.

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