Olara A. Otunnu is the President of LBL Foundation for Children, a New York-based independent international organization devoted to promoting protection, hope, healing and education for children in communities devastated by war.

Mr. Otunnu is widely acclaimed for his leadership, vision, and extensive contribution in the fields of international peace and security; human rights and humanitarian issues; the role and reform of the United Nations; development issues; the future of Africa; development issues; and the protection of children exposed to war.

From 1998 to 2005, Mr. Otunnu served as the UN Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. In that capacity he led the international campaign to develop and mobilize international action on behalf of children exposed to war, serving as advocate and moral voice for them, promoting measures for their protection in times of war and for their healing and social reintegration in the aftermath of conflict. He instituted several major innovations, including placing child protection on the agenda of the UN Security Council, a comprehensive body of protection norms and standards, child-specific war crimes in the Rome Statute, Child Protection Advisers, ‘Naming and Shaming' list, international monitoring and reporting mechanism, and the ‘Era of Application'. He was the architect of the ground-breaking compliance regime for the protection of children, adopted by the UN Security Council (Resolution 1612) in July 2005. The compliance regime formally establishes a comprehensive, international monitoring and reporting system to document grave violations against children, seeks to identify and publicly list offending parties, holding them accountable, and seeking to ensure compliance ‘on the ground' with international legal standards. In the course of his advocacy, Mr. Otunnu undertook field trips to several countries still in the grip of conflict or in the process of recovery.

Mr. Otunnu served as President of the International Peace Academy (IPA) from 1990 to 1998. IPA is an international institution dedicated to promoting the prevention and settlement of armed conflict between and within states. Under Mr. Otunnu's leadership, IPA acquired a new role and visibility: he developed an extensive portfolio of new programmes, making IPA an important forum for ideas and debate among policy-makers and opinion-makers. His programme initiatives included the development of a policy research programme to monitor and assess the effectiveness of multilateral peace operations; a regional programme for Africa designed to help the Organization of African Unity (now AU) and African civil society build indigenous capacities for responding more effectively to the dramatic situation of conflicts in Africa; and a major expansion of the Academy's training programme on peacemaking and peacekeeping.

Mr. Otunnu served as Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uganda from 1985 to 1986, during which time he played a prominent role in the Uganda peace talks culminating in the Nairobi Agreement of December 1985. Subsequently, he returned to academia. From 1987 to 1989, he was affiliated with the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) as Visiting Fellow, and with the American University in Paris as Visiting Professor.

From 1980 to 1985, Mr. Otunnu served as Uganda's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. During his tenure at the UN, he played a very active role, providing leadership in key roles, including President of the Security Council (1981), when he broke the deadlock over the election of the Secretary-General; Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (1983-1984); Vice-President of the General Assembly (1982-1983); Chairman of the General Assembly Credentials Committee (1983-1984), when he broke the deadlock over the Grenada crisis; Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Ministerial Meeting of Non-Aligned Countries (1983); Chairman of the African Group (1981); and Facilitator of Global Negotiations (1982-1983).

Mr. Otunnu has served as a member of several eminent commissions, including: the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (1994 to 1997); the Commission on Global Governance (1992-1995); the International Panel on Management and Decision-Making in the United Nations (1986-1987); the Group on Rethinking International Governance (1986-1990); the United Nations Group of Experts on New Concepts of International Security (1984-1985); the Commonwealth Group of Experts Study Group on the Security of Small States (1984-1985); and the International Task Force on Security Council Peace Enforcement.

Mr. Otunnu has been very active in many civic organizations. He currently serves on the boards of several prominent organizations, including: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the Aspen Institute; Carnegie Corporation of New York; the International Selection Commission of the Philadelphia Liberty Medal; Aspen France; the International Peace Academy; the Jury for the Hilton Humanitarian Prize; and Patron for the World's Children's Prize. Previously, he has served on the boards of: Hampshire College, the International Crisis Group (ICG), the Council of African Advisers of the World Bank; the International Patrons of the Refugee Studies Programme at Oxford University; Aspen Italia; and the Advisory Committee of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He is a member of the Club of Rome.

In the 1970s, as President of Makerere Students' Guild and later as Secretary-General of Uganda Freedom Union, Mr. Otunnu played a leading role in the resistance against the regime of Idi Amin. At the Moshi Unity Conference on Uganda (1979), Mr. Otunnu was elected to serve as a member of the Uganda National Consultative Council, the interim administration in the post-Amin period (1979-1980).

Born in Mucwini (Chua) Uganda, Mr. Otunnu received his early education at Mucwini and Anaka. He received his secondary education at Gulu High School and King's College Budo. He then attended Makerere University in Kampala (where he was President of the Students' Guild), Oxford University (where he was Overseas Scholar) and Harvard Law School (where he was Fulbright Scholar). A lawyer by training, he was an Associate with the law firm of Chadbourne and Parke in New York, prior to becoming Assistant Professor of Law at Albany Law School.

Mr. Otunnu is internationally recognized and solicited as a public speaker, lecturer and commentator. He has published extensively in various periodicals, magazines and newspapers; he is the co-author, with Professor Michael Doyle, of ";Peacemaking and Peacekeeping for the New Century"; (1998). He is a frequent commentator and interviewee on various flagship programs on key radio and television networks, including on BBC World Service (Radio), BBC World (Television), CNN, PBS, NPR, Radio France Internationale (RFI), Voice of America, NHK, Sky News, South Africa Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Deutsche Welle, and Radio Netherlands.

Mr. Otunnu has received several major awards, in recognition of his extraordinary and diverse contributions, including the German Africa Prize (2002); the Sydney Peace Prize (2005); and the Distinguished Service Award, awarded by the United Nations Association of USA in New York (2001). He has been named World's Children Ombudsman by the International Jury for the World's Children's Prize.

Source: LBL Foundation for Children

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