Taipei, March 23 (CNA) Former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, winner of the 2014 Tang Prize in sustainable development, is scheduled to give two talks in Taiwan next month on sustainable development, public health and the environment.
Brundtland, often dubbed the "godmother of sustainable development," will attend a forum titled "Public Health and the Environment in a Sustainable Society" at Academia Sinica on April 2, according to the Tang Prize Foundation.
The following day, she will give a speech titled "Sustainable Development Goals, a Thirty-Year Story of International Collaboration" at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan.
Brundtland will be visiting Taiwan to attend the Gro Brundtland Week of Women in Sustainable Development, which honors female researchers from developing countries and Taiwan.
Five female researchers from South Africa, Kenya, India, the Philippines and Malaysia will receive the 2018 Gro Brundtland Award at a ceremony on April 3.
They will present their works and give a series of talks around Taiwan between March 28 and April 3, addressing issues such as women and children's health, diseases, and environmental sustainability, according to the foundation.
Brundtland is a former chairperson of the World Commission on Environment and Development, which coined the term "sustainable development" in a 1987 landmark report titled "Our Common Future."
The 1987 "Brundtland Report" by the WCED laid the groundwork for the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which produced a global action plan for sustainable development known as Agenda 21 and initiated the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the lead-up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
She has also served as Norway's environment minister, director-general of the World Health Organization, and a U.N. Special Envoy on Climate Change. She is currently deputy chairperson of The Elders, a group of world leaders brought together in 2007 by late South African President Nelson Mandela to work for peace and human rights.
With the award of the Tang Prize in 2014, Brundtland received a cash prize of NT$40 million (US$1.37 million) and a research grant of NT$10 million.
She donated half of the research grant to Milgis Trust, a Kenyan non-profit group that protects wildlife and natural resources, and the other half to NCKU to train female scientists and researchers from developing countries and Taiwan.
(By Christie Chen)
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