Gro Harlem Brundtland

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland is a physician and politician. She is the former Prime Minister of Norway and served as Director-General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003.

A medical doctor and Master of Public Health (MPH), Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland spent 10 years as a physician and scientist in the Norwegian public health system. She served in public office for more than 20 years – 10 of them as prime minister. In the 1980s, she gained international recognition, championing the principle of sustainable development as the chair of the World Commission of Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission).

Dr. Brundtland’s first choice of career was not to become an environmentalist or a politician but to become a doctor like her father. He was a specialist in rehabilitation medicine, a skill much in demand following World War II. When Dr. Brundtland was 10 years old, the family moved to the United States where her father had been awarded a Rockefeller scholarship.