Gro Harlem Brundtland (born April 20, 1939) is a Norwegian former doctor and politician from the Labour Party. She served as Norway’s prime minister three times: in 1981, from 1986 to 1989, and from 1990 to 1996. She also led her party from 1981 to 1992 and worked as the director-general of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003. She is best known for leading the Brundtland Commission, which created the Brundtland Report on sustainable development.
After studying to become a doctor, Brundtland joined the Labour Party and became Norway’s Minister of the Environment in 1974. She was the first female prime minister of Norway, taking office on February 4, 1981, but left her position on October 14, 1981. She returned as prime minister on May 9, 1986, and served until October 16, 1989. She took office for a third time on November 3, 1990. After leaving her role as prime minister in 1996, she worked internationally on issues like sustainable development and public health. She led the World Health Organization and served as a UN special envoy on Climate Change from 2007 to 2010. She is also a member of The Elders and a former vice-president of Socialist International.
Brundtland supported Norway joining the European Union during the 1994 referendum. As prime minister, she was widely called the “mother of the nation.” She received the 1994 Charlemagne Prize and many other honors.
Early life
Gro Harlem was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1939. She is the daughter of Gudmund Harlem, a doctor and politician, and Inga Margareta Elisabet Brynolf, who was born in 1918 and passed away in 2005. Gro has a younger brother named Lars and a younger sister named Hanne.
In 1963, Gro Harlem Brundtland earned a medical degree from the University of Oslo. In 1965, she completed a master's degree in public health from Harvard University.
From 1966 to 1969, she worked as a doctor at the health department in Norway. After that, she worked as a doctor in the public schools' health service in Oslo.
Political career
Harlem Brundtland worked as the minister for environmental affairs from 1974 to 1979.
In 1981, she became Norway's first female prime minister. She held this position from February to October of that year. At the age of 41, she was the youngest person to serve as prime minister of Norway.
She later served as prime minister two more times. Her second term lasted from May 9, 1986, to October 16, 1989. During this time, her government included a large number of female ministers—eight out of eighteen total ministers were women. Her third term as prime minister was from November 3, 1990, to October 25, 1996.
In 1981, Harlem Brundtland became the leader of the Labour Party. She held this role until 1992, when she stepped down during her third term as prime minister. In 1996, she left politics completely. Thorbjørn Jagland took over as both Labour Party leader and prime minister in 1992 and 1996, respectively.
In 2023, Harlem Brundtland returned to politics by running for a seat on the Oslo City Council. She won the election and became a member of the council.
International career
In 1983, Harlem Brundtland was asked by then United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar to create and lead the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which is often called the Brundtland Commission. She helped develop the idea of sustainable development through many public meetings that included people from different backgrounds. The commission published a report called Our Common Future in April 1987. This report helped lead to the 1992 Earth Summit, also known as UNCED, which was led by Maurice Strong, a member of the commission. The Brundtland Commission also helped create Agenda 21.
During her third term as a minister, the Norwegian government in 1993 started secret peace talks between the Israeli government, led by Yitzchak Rabin (a leader of the Labour Party like Brundtland), and the PLO, led by Yasser Arafat. This led to the signing of the Oslo Accords. For several years after, Norway stayed involved in promoting peace between Israel and Palestine, though the United States later took over as the main mediator.
After leaving her position as prime minister, Harlem Brundtland became Director-General of the World Health Organization in May 1998. In this role, she worked on public health issues, including forming a Commission on Macroeconomics and Health led by Jeffrey Sachs and addressing violence as a major health problem. She led efforts to reduce smoking worldwide through education, persuasion, and higher taxes. Under her leadership, the World Health Organization was one of the first major employers to require employees to quit smoking. However, the organization faced criticism for allowing drug companies to influence its work.
In 2003, Scientific American recognized Harlem Brundtland as their "Policy Leader of the Year" for organizing a global response to the SARS outbreak. She was replaced by Jong-Wook Lee on 21 July 2003. In 1994, she received the Charlemagne Prize from the city of Aachen.
In 2006, Harlem Brundtland was part of a group of experts who reviewed the work of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In May 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named her, along with Ricardo Lagos (former president of Chile) and Han Seung-soo (former foreign minister of South Korea), as UN Special Envoys for Climate Change.
Harlem Brundtland’s major political work has been written about by her husband, Arne Olav Brundtland, in two books: Married to Gro (ISBN 82-516-1647-6) and Still Married to Gro (ISBN 82-05-30726-1).
In 2007, she worked as a consultant for Pepsi.
Harlem Brundtland is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, a group that connects current and former women leaders who work together on issues important to women and fair development. She is also part of the Club of Madrid, an organization of former leaders from democratic countries who support strong governance and leadership.
She is a founding member of The Elders, a group of world leaders started by Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu to address global challenges. Mandela announced the group’s start on 18 July 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Harlem Brundtland has worked with The Elders on many projects, including traveling to places like Cyprus, the Korean Peninsula, Ethiopia, India, and the Middle East. She helped create Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage. She was Deputy Chair of The Elders from 2013 until 2018, when Ban Ki-moon and Graça Machel took over.
Harlem Brundtland attended the Bilderberg meetings in 1982 and 1983. Her husband attended in 1991.
In 2019, she served as co-chair of the WHO Global Preparedness Monitoring Board.
Assassination attempt
On July 22, 2011, Harlem Brundtland narrowly avoided being killed by Anders Behring Breivik. She had been on the island of Utøya hours before the attack to speak to members of the AUF camp. Breivik said he originally planned to target Harlem Brundtland, along with Eskil Pedersen and Jonas Gahr Støre, but he was delayed during his trip from Oslo. Breivik arrived on Utøya about two hours after Harlem Brundtland had left.
During his trial in 2012, Breivik shared his detailed plan to kill Harlem Brundtland. He told the court he intended to handcuff her, record himself reading a prepared statement about her "crimes," and then cut her head off on camera with a bayonet. He planned to put the video online. Breivik also said he intended to kill everyone else on the island, even though Harlem Brundtland was his main target.
Personal life
Harlem Brundtland married Arne Olav Brundtland on December 9, 1960. Together, they had four children; one child has passed away. The couple owns a home in southern France.
In 2002, Harlem Brundtland had surgery for uterine cancer at Oslo University Hospital, Ullevål. In 2008, it was reported that she had received two medical treatments at Ullevål in 2007, which were covered by Norwegian government funds. At the time, she had already informed Norwegian authorities that she had moved her residence to France, which meant she was no longer eligible for Norwegian social security benefits. After media coverage of the situation, Harlem Brundtland decided to return to Norway as her residence and stated she would pay for the treatments herself. She has also claimed to experience electrical sensitivity, which causes headaches when someone uses a mobile phone near her.
Honours
Harlem Brundtland has received many awards and honors, including:
- Indira Gandhi Prize (1988)
- Charlemagne Prize (1994)
- Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002
- Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Health (Spain, 2003)
- Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture (2008)
- Prize International Catalonia in 2013, shared with Malala Yousafzai
- Tang Prize in Sustainable Development (2014)
- Honorary member of the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights in 2016
- Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
- The National German Sustainability Award
- Honorary Member of the Moscow Society of Naturalists
- Rudyard n. Propst Award from Clubhouse International