Former President Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has been nominated as the winner of the 2025 Founders’ Sunhak Peace Award to be presented by the Sunhak Peace Prize Foundation in Seoul, South Korea.
Dr Jonathan becomes the third person and the first African leader to win this category of the Sunhak Award after former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister of Cambodia, Mr Hun Sen.
The 2025 Award Ceremony, which is the 6th in the series, will take place in Seoul on Friday, 11th April 2025, where Dr Jonathan and other laureates will be honoured.
The Sunhak Peace Prize Committee stated that Dr Jonathan is being recognised with the Founders’ Prize because of his consistent mediation and pro-democracy activities to bring peace throughout Africa, especially through the organisations he chairs, including the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation (GJF), the West African Elders Forum (WAEF), and the International Summit Council for Peace (ISCP).
The Founders’ Sunhak Peace Award and the Sunhak Peace Prize are two categories of awards presented biennially by the Committee to individuals and organisations acknowledged as worthy contributors to world peace and human development.
Prominent past winners of the second category, the Sunhak Peace Prize, include former Senegalese President Macky Sall, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, Dame Sarah Catherine Gilbert, co-developer of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.
Dr Jonathan will be receiving his award alongside three individuals recently announced by José Manuel Durão Barroso, Chair of the Sunhak Peace Prize Committee and former President of the European Commission, as winners in the other category.
They include Patrick Awuah Jr., Founder and President of Ashesi University in Ghana; Hugh Evans, Co-founder and CEO of Global Citizen; and Wanjira Mathai, Regional Director for Africa at the World Resources Institute.
Ikechukwu Eze, Special Adviser to Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, highlighted the founder of the Sunhak Peace Prize, Dr Hak Ja Han Moon, who leads an interreligious and international movement for peace. In her pre-event address, Dr Moon stated that the lives of the laureates have been an inspiring testament to how peace can be realised through concrete actions and cultural transformation.
She further stated: “Over the past decade, the Sunhak Peace Prize has identified and honoured individuals who have dedicated themselves to addressing urgent global challenges based on its three core values: respect for human rights, reconciliation of conflicts, and ecological conservation.”
Established in 2015, the biennial Sunhak Peace Prize honours individuals and organisations that have shown extraordinary service to global peace and well-being in one of three areas: sustainable human development, conflict resolution, or ecological conservation.
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