Book Gro Harlem Brundtland

Former Norwegian prime minister and physician Gro Harlem Brundtland became a leading global voice on sustainable development and global health. Trained as a doctor, she entered government in 1974 as Norway's Minister of the Environment and in 1981 became the country's first female prime minister. She held the office three times, in 1981, from 1986 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1996, and led the Labour Party from 1981 to 1992, earning the nickname "mother of the nation." She chaired the Brundtland Commission, whose Brundtland Report put the idea of sustainable development at the center of global policy. She then served as Director-General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003 and as an United Nations climate change envoy for three years starting in 2007, and she is deputy chair of The Elders. Her many honors include the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize (1988), the Charlemagne Prize (1994), the Blue Planet Prize (2004), the Albert Medal (2005), the Four Freedoms Award, the Tang Prize and the Global Economy Prize (2013). Brundtland speaks with rare authority on leadership, climate, public health and building consensus across nations.