Gro Harlem Brundtland on sustainable development, global responses to COVID-19 and the role of the WHO

Our guest this week is Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway and former head of the World Health Organization. 

Gro has had an illustrious career in Norway and abroad. In addition to becoming the first female head of the Norwegian Labor party, she became the first female prime minister of Norway in February 1981. And during her second stint as Prime Minister in 1986, her cabinet made world news headlines when she appointed 8 female ministers in a cabinet of 18. 

In addition to being widely regarded as the most influential Norwegian politician of all time, Gro is also widely known for having chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development, popularly referred to as the Brundtland Commission. The Commission’s influential 1987 report, Our Common Future, popularized and defined the term “sustainable development”. 

She is also known for her work as Director General of the World Health Organization between 1998 and 2003, during which time she and the WHO coordinated a rapid worldwide response to stem outbreaks of SARS.

We discussed the world response to Covid, multilateralism and the role of UN agencies such as the WHO and the current status of the sustainable development discourse. 

A full transcript of our conversation is available.

Host

Professor Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)

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