Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize

The founder of the Prizes

·         In the 1890s, Swedish, Alfred Nobel (right) donated his large fortune to the Nobel Prizes.

·         He dedicated the award to ‘the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity (peace or good relationships) between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace organisations.’

An Example:

·         The UN and its Secretary- General Kofi Annan (right) were chosen ‘for their work for a better organized and peaceful world.’ They aim to achieve peace and security in the world. He ran the UN for about 10 years and he was involved in work with trying to bring peace to non-peaceful areas.

The First Peace Prize

·         Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frederic Passy, a leading international pacifist of the time.

·         In addition to humanitarian efforts and peace movements, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work and in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts and arms control.

Number of Prizes

·         The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 120 Laureates (winners) – 97 times to individuals and 23 times to organizations.

The gender allocation

·         Of the 97 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 2 are women. This is mostly because during the 1900s men were given more opportunities than woman and only recently in some countries woman have been given proper rights.

Organisations 

•  Organisations can also win the award for example the Red Cross and Amnesty International.

More information can be found at http://nobelprize.org/