2024 Outstanding Peace Activist

Professor Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former head of UNESCO (1987-1999), has been a global pioneer for peace and intercultural dialogue. As co-president of the UN High-Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations (AoC), he worked to end extremism through increased intercultural cooperation. He founded the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and co-founded the Centre Humanism, Management & Globalization (HMG), advocating tirelessly for global understanding.

Professor Zaragoza’s mission is to “build a bastion of peace in the minds of all people” and to ensure a future where dialogue replaces power. “What we have to do is to get involved, to make possible a future in which the social gap disappears, in which the word is used instead of the power.”