Mancham ‘honoured and delighted’ with President Gorbachev’s invitation |22 July 2013

The conference will take place on September 3, 2013 at Le Palais des Nations in Geneva under the patronage of the director-general of UNOG, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The conference, to be held under the theme “Pathways into the Future: Triggers of Change”, is being organised to provide rich discourse and exchanges on the critical questions of peace, security, environment and development with the objective of formulating a “Geneva Appeal” and providing a road map to achieve “the future we want” as outlined in the RIO +20 document.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until its demise in 1991. The first Soviet leader to be born after the revolution, he tried to reform the Soviet Union with his policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), attempting to infuse the communist society and economy with a market dynamism.

He was widely popular in the West largely because of the way he managed the dismantling of the Soviet empire allowing the Berlin Wall and iron curtain to fall without Soviet military interference.
 
His attempts at reform help to end the cold war but also ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and unintentionally resulting in the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991.

Jan Kulczyk, born in 1950 in Poland, is a business man who, according to Forbes Magazine, is the richest citizen of Poland with an estimated net worth of 2.6 billion Euros.

In 2013, he was ranked 284 on the world’s billionaires list by Forbes moving up to the rank through his continuously diversified port folios of investment, notably in Africa where Kulczyk’s investments holds a 40% stake in Neconde Energy Ltd, a corporation which acquired an oil production license in Nigeria.

Kulczyk Holding is headquartered in Warsaw with its investment holdings being run from offices in Luxembourg, London, Kiev and Dubai. 
Alexander Likhotal was born in Moscow in 1950 with a distinguished academic background. He became senior research fellow at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he became Professor of Political Science and of International relations. In 1991 Alexander was appointed deputy spokesman and advisor to the President of the USSR.

He remained with President Gorbachev after his resignation as his advisor and spokesman. He is very active as the International Media Director at the Gorbachev Foundation.

Kassy-Jomart Tokayev was formerly the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, a position which he held over 10 years. In 2011, the Secretary-General of the United Nations announced his appointment as under secretary-general, and director-general of the UNOG and as the personal representative of the United Nations secretary-general to the conference on disarmament.   

Mr Mancham, who is an elected member of the Committee of the Wise and Elders of Comesa; an Honorary Councillor of the World Future Council (WFC); a member of the Board of Governors of the Savannah Ocean Exchange; a Vice-President of Centrist Asia-Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI); a member of the Academic Council of European Centre for Peace Development (ECPD); a co-Chairman of the Global Peace Foundation (GPF); a member of the presidium of the Council of the Eco-Safety Collaborative Organisation (IESCO); a pioneering member of the World Entrepreneurs Forum and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD), said he feels highly honoured and delighted in starting an association with the Green Cross International which today operates globally and has offices in and around 30 countries and which has over the last two decades been responding to the combined challenges of security, poverty and environmental degradation in a remarkable way.

He expressed his appreciation for the Green Cross International’s role in the Climate Change Task Force - an independent non-governmental committee to urgently step up the global response to the challenges of climate change.