Seen in his lifetime as Africa’s foremost diplomat, Kofi Annan, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, was born on April 8, 1938, in Kumasi in the then Gold Coast. He attended Mfantsipim School from 1954 to 1957.
In 1958, he started studying economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology (later KNUST), a degree he completed in 1961 at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, thanks to a Ford Foundation scholarship. He would go on to earn a degree in International Relations in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1962, and a Master’s in Management from MIT in Boston, MA, from 1971 to 1972.
His diplomatic career started as a budget officer in the World Health Organization. After stints at various positions in the UN, he was appointed Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping in 1993. In this position, he oversaw peacekeeping efforts in Rwanda in 1994 and Bosnia in 1995. He became the UN Secretary-General in 1997.
His time at the UN was marked by his work to revitalize and reform the organization to make it more effective. He also advocated for human rights, and the rule of law, the Millennium Development Goals, for Africa, and forged ties with civil society and the private sector. He played a central role in the creation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the adoption of the UN’s first-ever counter-terrorism strategy, and the acceptance by Member States of the “responsibility to protect” people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. The “Global Compact” program he launched in 1999 has become the largest worldwide effort to promote corporate social responsibility.
He was quite active as a diplomat, too. He mediated in conflicts between Timor-Leste and Indonesia, Lebanon and Israel, Hizbollah and Israel, and Cameroon and Nigeria.
For having revitalized the UN, given priority to human rights, supporting the fight to stop the spread of HIV in Africa, and his declared opposition to international terrorism, the Nobel Committee decided to split the Nobel Peace Prize between Kofi Annan and the United Nations in 2001.
After retiring from the UN in December 2006, he founded the Kofi Annan Foundation the next year. The foundation was an independent, not-for-profit organization that aimed to “work to promote better global governance and strengthen the capacities of people and countries to achieve a fairer, more secure world”.
Even after retirement, his diplomatic efforts continued either under the umbrella of his foundation, as a member of “the Elders” (a group of independent global leaders who work together on peace and human rights issues), or on behalf of governments or international organizations. He would mediate in conflicts in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Syria, and Myanmar.
He also served on several corporate boards and was active in the affairs of many non-profit organizations, both in Africa and around the world. In Ghana, he served as Chancellor of the University of Ghana, a position he held until his death.
After a short illness, Kofi Annan passed away at the age of 80 on August 18, 2018, in Bern, Switzerland. His body was returned to Ghana for a state funeral on September 13, 2018. He is buried at the new Military Cemetery at Burma Camp in Accra.
Besides the Nobel Peace Prize, he was honored with many other awards during his life and even posthumously, like the “Four Freedoms Awards” in 2004 and the Max Schmidheiny Foundation Freedom Prize” in 2006.
He was also honored with the enstoolment as the “Busumuru” of the Asantes in Ghana by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II, in 2002.
The UN released a stamp in his honor in 2019.
Institutions named in his honor include the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center and the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center of Excellence in ICT, both in Accra, Ghana; the Kofi Annan University of Guinea in Conakry, Guinea; and the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.
Kofi Annan’s impact on the UN and attempts to make the world a peaceful place cannot be denied. His education and upbringing at Mfantsipim not only laid the foundation for the leader he was going to be – he organized a successful strike for better food while at the school – but, like he is reported to have said, the school taught him that “suffering anywhere, concerns people everywhere”. It is no wonder he spent his life trying to alleviate suffering through diplomacy and mediation.
Kofi Annan is an illustrious son of Mfantsipim, a Botwe boy.