Nelson Mandela Announces New Group to Work on World Problems

There is nothing like the voice of experience, and the group the Elders has more experience in world affairs than you can find anywhere. The formation of the group was announced by former South African President, Nelson Mandela on July 18th, his 89th birthday.

The group grew out of a concern of some of the senior former diplomats and world leaders for the various difficult situations that are being faced in the world today.

And it is an impressive group, indeed. The Chair of the Group is former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism.

The other founding members who are going to volunteer their experience are Former South African President Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel, the only woman to be first lady of two countries and current wife of Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, former US President Jimmy Carter, former foreign minister of the People's Republic of China Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson, the first female President of Ireland, Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi banker and economist and former professor of economics, Ela Bhatt the founder of India's Self-Employed Women's Association and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway, former Director General of the World Health Organization. She now serves as an Environmental Envoy of the United Nations.

The purpose of the group is to share their skills and expertise to bring peaceful solutions to current conflicts around the world and to bring new approaches to world wide issues that cause human suffering.

They will be working as a team over the next several months to go over the issues and decide on which ones they are going to work on. They intend to pick situations in which they feel they can have a real impact.

They will also partner with existing groups to assist with their goals and they will work as a group and individually, whatever the situation calls for.