FORMER President Bharrat Jagdeo, a patron of the World Sustainable Development Forum returned home yesterday after visiting 16 countries in Africa and Asia. Mr. Jagdeo is returning from a recent visit to Asia, where he consulted with leaders from other countries on how to progress sustainable development initiatives.
Mr. Jagdeo joined former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and 12 other world leaders last year in support of work to influence global progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals and advancing sustainable development.
The recent World Sustainable Development Forum drew on the advice of world leaders for battling climate change.
Mr. Annan described combating the issue as a global threat of similar order to addressing violent conflict and poverty, while former President Jagdeo has described sustainable development as an area where “today’s developing countries can lead the rest of the world”.
Jagdeo has taken on several global roles relating to the promotion of green growth and sustainable development. The world’s largest and oldest environmental organisation, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced that then President Jagdeo would become the IUCN High Level Envoy for Sustainable Development in Forest Countries and an IUCN Patron of Nature.
In 2011, Heads of State and other leaders from the world’s rainforest countries asked him to be “Roving Ambassador for the Three Basins”. He is also a Board member of the Korea-based Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI).
Time Magazine described him as a ‘Hero of the Environment’ in 2008, while he was awarded the United Nations ‘Champion of the Earth’ award in 2010, and served on the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Climate Finance in the same year.