2001 Nobel Peace Prize

The 2001 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the United Nations and Kofi Annan. The prize was announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo on 12 October 2001.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

The United Nations was founded in 1945. Kofi Annan was born in 1938 in Kumasi, Gold Coast (now Ghana).

Why it matters

The prize, awarded in the centenary year of the Nobel Peace Prize, honours the United Nations and its Secretary-General. Annan, from Ghana, has led the UN since 1997 and has made human rights and the fight against HIV and AIDS central to its work.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.