Harvard Activist Award for PM Jacinda Ardern

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has received a Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership Gleitsman International Activist Award, which was presented at a virtual ceremony on 1 December.

According to the Harvard Kennedy School, the annual award honours Ardern, 40, for her leadership, decisive action, and commitment to reformative and inclusive policies that have served New Zealand and the health of our planet. The Prime Minister has asked that this year’s US$150,000 prize money go to a scholarship for a student from New Zealand enrolled at Harvard Kennedy School.

“[Ardern] exemplifies principled, effective and just leadership, exactly the kind of leadership our students aspire to uphold,” Wendy Sherman, the School’s professor of the practice of public leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership, said. “She has wielded a steady and swift hand, an open mind, and a keen reflection of her entire community in meeting challenges of terror, earthquakes and now Covid-19. The prime minister reminds all of us that strength, compassion, science, clear communications, humility and activism go hand in hand to create positive results.”

Previous Gleitsman recipients include Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela and Gloria Steinem.

Original article by The Harvard Gazette, November 19, 2020.

Photo by Ministry of Justice.