The Shared Societies Project
Building a World Safe for Difference
Programs
- The Shared Societies Project
- The G20 in a Post Crisis World
- Women's Political Participation and Leadership
- Energy and Climate Change
- Global Leadership for Haiti Reconstruction
- Political Leadership for Democratic Transition in Kyrgyzstan
- Freedom of Association in the MENA
- The Political Dimensions of the World Economic Crisis
- Political Leadership for Democratic Development
- Democracy, Security and Terrorism
- General Assemblies and Annual Conferences
Network of Political Leaders United to Support Shared Societies (NetPLUSS)
In all its activities the Club de Madrid has worked with people in positions of leadership and influence who share the values of the Club de Madrid. The Club de Madrid benefits from their experience and expertise and their capacity to enthuse and inspire other leaders.
The purpose of NetPLUSS will be to provide a supportive network and environment for leaders who are promoting Shared Societies. They will form a pool of leaders who can be called on to make their knowledge and expertise available in the activities of the Shared Societies Project.
- Kinga Göncz, Member of European Parliament (S&D, Hungary), Vice-Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee
- H. Muhammad Jusuf Kalla, 10th Vice President of Indonesia (2004-2009), Chairman of the Golkar Party during the same period
- Sir John Kaputin, Former Secretary General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States
- Juan Fernando López Aguilar, Member of the European Parliament and former Minister of Justice of Spain
- Beatriz Merino, National Ombudsman of Peru.
- Roelf Meyer, former South African Minister for Constitutional Affairs, later Minister for Constitutional Development and Provincial Affairs.
- David Miller, Mayor of Toronto.
- Baroness Nuala O'Loan, Member of the UK House of Lords and former Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland.
- Ebrahim Rasool, Ambassador of South Africa to the USA and Former Premier of Western Cape Province.
- Yaga Venugopal Reddy. Governor, Reserve Bank of India (2003-2008)
Kinga Göncz
Member of European Parliament (S&D, Hungary), Vice-Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee
Kinga Göncz, Hungary, is a member of Magyar Szocialista Párt (MSZP – Hungarian Socialist Party), part of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. She became a member of the European Parliament in 2009 and is currently Vice-Charwoman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. She is also part of the Delegation for Relations with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. As a substitute, Göncz sits on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Petitions, the Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis, and is part of the Delegation for Relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Before joining Parliament, Göncz was Minister of Foreign Affairs in Hungary from 2006 to 2009 and Minister of Youth, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities from 2004 to 2006. She was nominated as Minister without portfolio of Equal Opportunities in 2004, and was appointed as Political State Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Social and Family Affairs in 2002. Between 1998 and 2003, Göncz taught a course in the Social Psychology of Prejudice at the Human Rights Department of the Central European University, Hungary. She acted as the director of Partners Hungary from 1994 to 2002, and was an associate professor at the Social Policy and Social Work Department of the Institute for Sociology of Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, from 1989.
H. Muhammad Jusuf Kalla
10th Vice President of Indonesia (2004-2009), Chairman of the Golkar Party during the same period
Jusuf Kalla was born on 15 May 1942 in Watampone, South Sulawesi. Kalla attended the University of Hasanuddin in Makassar and in 1977 he graduated from INSEAD, an international business school in Fontainebleau. Kalla returned to politics in 1987 when he was appointed to the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) as a regional representative for south Sulawesi. A popular figure for assisting with the peace process in Sulawesi, Kalla considered throwing himself into the mix for the 2004 Presidential Elections. In August 2003 he announced his candidacy and enlisted to be part of Golkar's 2004 Convention which elects its Presidential candidate. Kalla accepted the offer of the Democratic Party's (PD) Yudhoyono to become his running mate, and both came first with 33% of the votes. For the run-off, Kalla and Yudhoyono faced a huge challenge when Megawati formed a National Coalition. On 20 September 2004, Kalla and Yudhoyono won the run-offs with 60.87% of the votes and Kalla became the 10th Vice President of Indonesia.
On 19 December 2004, Kalla was elected as the new Chairman of Golkar. Kalla ran for the presidency with Wiranto as his running mate in the 2009 Indonesian presidential election, finishing third with 12.4% of the vote.
Sir John Kaputin
Former Secretary General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States
Born on July 11, 1941, Sir John's political career began with his election to the House of Assembly in 1972 where he helped shape the Papua New Guinean Constitution as member of the Constitutional Planning Committee. He was the foreign minister of Papua New Guinea from 1992 until 1994 and from December 1999 until 2000. He is a co-founder of the Melanesian Alliance Party and was named Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1983 and Knight Bachelor of the British Empire in 1997.
Sir John has served as chairman of the bipartisan committee on the Bougainville Crisis and as Special State negotiator for Bougainville in helping to resolve a complex, bloody crisis that spanned a decade.
In September 1995, Sir John as the Member for Rabaul was elected President of the ACP Assembly and co-president of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly based in Brussels, Belgium. Sir John urges Pacific Island countries to work on their economic partnership agreements with the European Commission, saying that the overarching emphasis of the Contonou Agreement is poverty alleviation intertwined with national responsibilities on good governance, structural adjustments and human rights. In March 2005, he took office as Secretary General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States for the next five years.
Juan Fernando López Aguilar
Member of the European Parliament and former Minister of Justice of Spain
Juan Fernando López Aguilar is a Spanish Socialist Workers' Party politician, and former Minister of Justice in the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In 2006, he was chosen as the socialist candidate for the Presidency of the Canary Islands Government.
Currently he is a Member of the European Parliament since June 2009, where he serves as Chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and as President of the Spanish Socialist Delegation. He is also a Member of the Conference of Committee Chairs and the Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. He has been nominated as Vice-president of the PES (Party of European Socialists) in 2009. Mr. López Aguilar also serves as a substitute at the Committee of Legal Affairs; the Committee on Constitutional Affairs; the Parliamentary Cooperation Committees for the EU Delegations to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and for relations with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia; and the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.
López Aguilar holds a Ph.D. in Law from the
Beatriz Merino
National Ombudsman of Peru
On September 29, 2005, Dr. Beatriz Merino was elected by the Congress of the Republic of Peru to the Office of the Defensoría Del Pueblo, or Ombudsman. Before this position, she worked at the World Bank as a senior specialist in the public sector, specifically in charge of Political and Tax administration, State Development and the Strengthening of the Congresses of Latin America. Furthermore, on the October 29th, 2009, the Defensoría del Pueblo was elected to the Presidency of the Iberoamerican Federation of Ombudsman (FIO). Between June and December of 2003, she became the first woman to occupy the prestigious position of President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Peru. From 2001 until 2003 Merino was the National Superintendent of the Office of Tax Related Administration (SUNAT). Before that she was elected National Representative on two occasions: as Senator of the Republic (1990-1992) and as Congresswoman (1995-2000).
Dr. Merino developed professionally within the private sector through her managerial experience and leadership at Proctor & Gamble, where she was the head of the Legal Department, International Business, and Environmental Affairs. From 2000-2001, she served as the Director of the Dept. of Taxes and Fiscal Politics of the University of Lima.
Until her election to the Office of the Defensoría Del Pueblo, she also participated in the Inter-American Dialogue, a prestigious institution based in the Washington DC. While a member, she specialized in hemispheric relations. Dr. Merino is also the author of the books ¨The Peruvian Woman in 20th Century Legislation, and ¨Marriage and Rape: the Debate of Article 178 of the Penal Code of Peru.¨
Roelf Meyer
Former South African Minister for Constitutional Affairs, later Minister for Constitutional Development and Provincial Affairs.
As Chief peace negotiator for the National Party (NP) government, Roelf Meyer was intimately involved in the negotiations on the settlement of the South African conflict. In this capacity he negotiated the end of the apartheid together with Cyril Ramaphosa, who was chief negotiator for the African National Congress (ANC). These negotiations resulted in the first democratic elections in South Africa at the end of April 1994. After the elections Meyer continued in the portfolio of Constitutional Affairs in the cabinet of former President Nelson Mandela.
Meyer currently acts as a consultant on peace processes. In this capacity he became involved in various countries around the globe – Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Burundi, Kosovo and Bolivia – as well as in the Basque Region and the Middle East. Meyer serves on the Strategy Committee of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition in New York and held the Tip O’Neill Chair in peace studies at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, in 2001.
David Miller
Mayor of Toronto
David Miller was elected Toronto's 63rd mayor in November 2003 and was re-elected in November 2006 with nearly 60% of the popular vote and a mandate to make Toronto a city of prosperity, liveability and opportunity for all.
One of the proudest of his many accomplishments as Mayor was securing a New Deal for Cities with senior orders of government. The New Deal has provided Toronto with new powers, money, and respect from the provincial and federal governments. In addition, Miller has been one of the dominant voices speaking in support of a national urban agenda - including a national transit strategy and a Clean and Beautiful City Initiative for the rejuvenation of parks and public spaces and a Community. He has also worked to make Toronto a world-leading city on environmental issues and on June 4, 2008 he was appointed chair of the influential C40 Group of World Cities leading the fight against Climate Change.
Baroness Nuala O'Loan
Member of the UK House of Lords and former Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland
Baroness Nuala O’Loan is a qualified solicitor and held the Jean Monnet Chair in European Law at the University of Ulster.
She has, among other things, been: Chairman of the Northern Ireland Consumer Committee for Electricity; a Special Commissioner for the Commission for Racial Equality’s Formal Investigation into Racism in Policing in England and Wales, a Member of the Police Authority; Vice-Chair of the Police Authority’s Community Relations Committee; a Member of the Northern Health and Social Services Board; Convenor of the NHS Complaints System for the Northern Health and Social Services Board; a Member of the General Consumer Council, and Convenor of the Transport and Energy Group of that Council; and a Legal Expert Member of the European Commission’s Consumers Consultative Council. For seven years, Baroness Nuala O’Loan was also a custody visitor to police stations.
She is the wife of Declan O'Loan MLA and they have 5 sons.
Ebrahim Rasool
Ambassador of South Africa to the USA and Former Premier of Western Cape Province
Mr. Ebrahim Rasool was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 15 July 1962. After the first democratic election in 1994, Mr. Ebrahim Rasool served as a Member of the Executive Council of the Western Cape Legislature. In 1998, he was elected chairperson of the ANC in the Western Cape, a position he held until June 2005. During this time he led the ANC as the Official Opposition from 1998, becoming part of a Coalition Government in 2001 and assuming Government in 2004. In 1998, he served on the National Executive Committee of the ANC.
He served in Government in a number of portfolios:
- 1994-1998 Provincial Minister of Health and Social Services
- 2001–2004 Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Development
- 2004 – Appointed by President Thabo Mbeki as the Premier of the Western Cape
In all the portfolios he served, his tenure was characterized by driving transformation and innovation in Government and his period as Premier was characterized by the fastest growing economy in the country, major investment drives and a campaign to unite the people of the Province towards a vision of a Home for All.
Awards received by Ebrahim Rasool include the 1996 Kaizer Foundation International Award for Health and Human Rights and Britain’s Financial Times 2005 Award for Foreign Direct Investment ‘Personality of the Year: Africa’ for his successful efforts in attracting investment to the region, improving the Provincial business environment and raising its international profile.
Mr. Ebrahim Rasool was the Special Advisor to the President of the Republic of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe. He is currently Member of the Parliament of South Africa and Founder of the World for All Foundation.
Yaga Venugopal Reddy
Governor, Reserve Bank of India (2003-2008)
Yaga Venugopal Reddy (Dr. Y.V. Reddy) was Governor, Reserve Bank of India, from 2003 to 2008. Subsequently, he was Member of the UN Commission of Experts to the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of International Monetary and Financial System. He was a Member of an informal international group of prominent persons on International Monetary Reforms (Palais Royal Initiative). His book “India and the Global Financial Crisis : Managing Money and Finance” was among the best sellers in India (Orient Blackswan 2009). His most recent publication is titled “Global Crisis, Recession and Uneven Recovery” (Orient Blackswan, 2011).
Dr. Reddy is currently Professor Emeritus, University of Hyderabad. He is also Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dr. Reddy is on the Advisory Board of Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and is also on International Advisory Board of the Columbia Program on Indian Economic Policies, Columbia University, New York. He is also on the Advisory Group of eminent persons to advise the Finance Minister of India on G-20 issues.
Prior to being the Governor, he was Executive Director for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan at the International Monetary Fund since August 2002. Prior to this, he was Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India, for six years. Formerly, he was Secretary, Ministry of Finance, and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Commerce in the Government of India. He served Government of Andhra Pradesh, India in several capacities including Principal Secretary and Secretary – Finance and Planning, Collector and District Magistrate etc. He was also advisor in World Bank.
Dr. Reddy was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan Award in 2010.