Madrid Club members Benjamin Mkapa and Festus Mogae will attend  "Aurora" award ceremony in Yerevan

ArmInfo.Members of the Club of Madrid former President of Tanzania Benjamin Mkapa and former President of Botswana Festus Mogae will attend the ceremony of 

awarding the "Aurora" prize in Yerevan, which will be held on May 28.

As part of the agreement, Club de Madrid members Benjamin Mkapa, 

former President of Tanzania, and Festus Mogae, former President of 

Botswana, will participate in the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity 

Ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia. These two African leaders have had 

first-hand experience in dealing with ongoing conflict in Africa and 

especially in Sudan. In Yerevan, they will be engaging with 

humanitarian practitioners, scholars, media professionals and 

policymakers to discuss effective approaches and reforms for 

peacekeeping and peacebuilding and the role of economic development 

in the process. 

The Aurora Prize is a global award established by the Aurora 

Humanitarian Initiative and granted to individuals in recognition of 

the exceptional impact their actions have made on preserving human 

life and advancing humanitarian causes. Presidents Mkapa and Mogae 

will be on-hand to celebrate the 2017 Aurora Prize Laureate, who will 

receive a US$100,000 grant to continue their work, and the 

opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by nominating 

organizations that inspire their work for a US$1,000,000 award.  The 

2017 Aurora Prize Laureate will be selected from these five 

finalists: Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman, Jamila Afghani, Dr. Tom 

Catena, Muhammad Darwish and Dr. Denis Mukwege. 

The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, a non-profit charitable 

organization established on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian 

Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, today announced a 

collaboration with the World Leadership Alliance Club de Madrid, the 

world's largest independent forum of former heads of state and 

government. The collaboration, which began May 1, 2017, aims to 

inspire action to support those in need of humanitarian aid.