UNESCAP Lifetime achievement award for Amartya

New Delhi, Mar 17: The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) will present the first ever UNESCAP Award for Lifetime Achievement to the celebrated economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.

The Award would be presented to Prof Sen at Bangkok on March 28 as part of UNESCAP's 60th anniversary celebration.

'Professor Sen's seminal contributions in understanding some of the fundamental issues and problems in the theory of social choice, welfare distribution, poverty, famines, democracy, individual freedom and human identity have revolutionized contemporary thinking. ''Not a single day goes by when we in the United Nations do not use his ideas, his principles, and his views in our work,'' UNESCAP Executive Secretary Kim Hak-Su said in a release.

Mr Kim will make the formal presentation during the official anniversary commemoration. But prior to receiving the award, Prof Sen will give a special lecture at the UN Conference Centre. He would also hold a press conference at the Centre the next day.

Born in Santiniketan, India, in 1933, Prof Sen was educated at Presidency College, Calcutta, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is currently the Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University, and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Prof. Sen was the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics.

UNESCAP's 60th anniversary celebration will include a video message from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, a keynote address by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and remarks from Thai Prime Minister General Surayud Chulanont. The programme will also include a specially commissioned dance performance portraying change in the region since 1947, when UNESCAP was founded. As part of the observance, Mr. Kim will present to Her Royal Highness a new book on UNESCAP history entitled 'The First Parliament of Asia.' Headquartered in Bangkok, UNESCAP is the largest of the UN's five Regional Commissions in terms of its membership, population served and area covered. The only inter-governmental forum covering the entire Asia-Pacific region, UNESCAP aims to promote economic and social progress.

UNI