Mandela Honoured at South-South Awards

{{Former South African president Nelson Mandela has been awarded for his outstanding leadership for human rights and development.}}

Mr Mandela was given a Humanitarian Achievement Award at this year’s South-South Awards ceremony on Sunday night.

His wife, Graca Machel also received the prize for her tireless advocacy for education, children’s welfare and culture.

Mr Mandela and Ms Machel have both contributed greatly to development and human rights across Africa and the whole world.

Their most recent initiative, Legacy of Hope, was formed to fund the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital in Johannesburg, and will bring free healthcare to children in South Africa.

Prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda Baldwin Spencer presented the awards to their daughters, Zindzi Mandela and Josina Machel, who attended the ceremony on their behalf.

The 95-year-old anti-apartheid hero was admitted to hospital on June 8 for a recurring lung infection before being discharged on September 1.

At the ceremony, Costa Rica’s President Laura Chinchilla Miranda, Bahrain’s Premier Khalifa bin Saliman Al-Khalifa and his Fiji counterpart and Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, received this year’s Global Governance Leadership award.

Leadership

The Global Governance Leadership Awards are presented to individuals who have made distinctive contributions to sustainable development, the youth, e-governance, and information and communications technology.

The South-South Awards, now in its third year, is a gala recognition of exceptional contributions made to the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and sustainable development all over the world on the part of the heads of state and government, as well as executives from the private sector and civil society.

The theme of this year’s award ceremony is “Innovation and Technology for Sustainable Development.”

“South-South cooperation offers real, concrete solutions to common development challenges,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a televised message.

“Sharing best practices, funding pilot projects in far-flung locales, providing the capital to scale-up successful projects, supplying regional public goods, developing and adapting appropriate technologies, these are the opportunities that the international community needs to better leverage.”

The South-South Awards 2013 was orgainsed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Permanent Mission of Antigua and Barbuda to the UN, the UN Public Administration Network, the South-South Steering Committee for Sustainable Development, and the International Organisation for South-South Cooperation and South-South News.

NMG