Peace Initiative Taps KSG Leader

Swanee Hunt, the director of the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), was one of 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last week, as part of a symbolic gesture meant to highlight the work women do to promote peace.

Hunt was nominated as part of the “1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005” initiative, which was started by a Swiss non-governmental organization that wanted to honor women engaged in peacekeeping efforts. Since the organization’s inception in 1901, only 12 women have won the Peace Prize.

The 1,000 women who have been chosen represent 153 different countries and cover many different fields, from fighting child prostitution to halting the spread of nuclear weapons and generating alternative forms of income for poor families.

Forty women were chosen from the United States. The country with the most representation, India, had 91 women chosen.

Because the Nobel cannot be given to 1,000 people, only three of the women were formally nominated for the prize. Hunt was not one.

But the initiative recognized Hunt, who is also an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the KSG, for the work that she did while acting as the U.S. ambassador in Vienna. In 1997, she brought together 320 international women leaders in business, law, and politics for the “Vital Voices Democracy Initiative and Conference.” This event inspired similar conferences in other parts of Europe and North America.

“It was a great honor to be included in the group, and I am enormously appreciative of the opportunities that I’ve had from Harvard to launch this work,” said Professor Hunt. “The work was incubated here at the Kennedy School, with the help of [former KSG Dean] Joseph Nye, who was a visionary dean, bringing in hundreds of women with conflicts from around the world.”

Hunt is also the chair of a private foundation, the Hunt Alternatives Fund (HAF), which has $50 million to promoting social change.

Margo Okazawa-Rey, the 1,000 Women Nobel Peace Prize coordinator for the U.S., Canada, Japan and Korea, praised the decision to include Hunt among the 1,000 names.

“The contribution that Swanee has made is bringing together women from the global north and women from the global south, whose lives are inextricably linked, and providing a forum in which they can ask the more difficult questions that often don’t get asked,” she said.

The Nobel Peace Prize panel will award the 2005 prize in October. In the event that one of the 1,000 Women for Peace is chosen, her prize money will go toward strengthening the organizations for which the 1,000 women work.

Okazawa-Rey, who graduated from the School of Education in 1987, said that the project is a success whether or not the nominees win the award.

“The main point isn’t to win, but to represent the work of these 1,000 women and to inspire other women. This project is the most inspiring project that I’ve been involved with in a long time. It is very inspiring for me and my students,” she said.

Although on the KSG faculty, Hunt has also taught classes at the College—this past year, she taught Religion 1564, “The Choreography of Social Movements.”

Nicholas A. Rizzo ’08, who took the course, praised Hunt as a professor.

“She has so much experience that she could share so much with the class, and she had done so many things that she was able to bring in really impressive speakers,” he said. “The class was truly a one-of-a-kind experience.”

—Staff writer Jenny Tsai can be reached at tsai3@fas.harvard.edu.