Martti Ahtisaari was a former UN diplomat, a Finnish statesman and a renowned peace mediator in international conflicts. Upon leaving office of President of Finland, he founded the Crisis Management Initiative in 2000. In 2008 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his leading role in bringing independence to Namibia, Serbia’s withdrawal from Kosovo, and autonomy for Aceh in Indonesia.
Former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari was the founder of CMI. He played a leading role in peace deals in several parts of the world. In 2000, Ahtisaari declined the offer of the then-Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, of the post of Secretary General of the UN High Commission for Refugees. Ahtisaari felt he could make a greater contribution to peacemaking by directly tackling the root causes of conflicts. To this end, that same year he established the Crisis Management Initiative, the aim of which was to help the international community to engage in preventive diplomacy and peacebuilding. Since then, CMI has grown to become one of the leading specialists in conflict prevention and resolution. On 1 May 2021, CMI transferred all its operations to the new legal structure CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation, which continues the work of CMI association.
“Without equality, we can never rid the world of conflicts”
Life in peace mediation
Martti Ahtisaari was elected President of the Republic of Finland in early 1994 and served one term in office, until early 2000. After leaving the presidency, he took on various tasks in the areas of peace mediation and conflict resolution. In 2005, he helped facilitate the peace process between the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement. From late 2005 to early 2008 Ahtisaari was Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo. Martti Ahtisaari was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 for, as the Nobel Committee’s press statement put it, “his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”. Although a wholehearted global citizen, Ahtisaari was far from being a rootless cosmopolitan. The Finnish and Nordic model of social justice remained of crucial importance to his thinking, and he was an ardent believer and proponent of the Nordic welfare state model as an inspiration for others throughout the world.