Georgia has emerged as a leader in a handful of new industries over the past half-decade. The state has made great strides in areas including film, FinTech, and cybersecurity, utilizing its top-notch economic development arm to lure and expand businesses that may not have otherwise had any presence in the South.
Now local leaders are turning their eye to the “Peace Industry,” courting the 2020 Summit of the Nobel Peace Laureates as the first chapter of a grander plan to turn Atlanta into the “City of Peace,” a cultural capital of the global peace movement.
The Nobel Prizes are closely tied to the Scandinavian countries of Norway and Sweden, where they were created and where they are still awarded today. But Georgia has a long history with the organization, particularly with the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the famous civil rights icon, was of course born in Atlanta, and to this day remains one of the most celebrated Peace Prize laureates. Likewise President Jimmy Carter won the 2002 prize for his work at the nonprofit Carter Center and the brokering of the Camp David Peace Accords.
Those ties may have opened the door to a conversation about strengthening Georgia’s ties with the Nobel Peace Laureates, but a group of high-profile Atlantans are working to make sure that the relationship goes much further.
Earlier this month a delegation from the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and other Nobel-related entities traveled to Atlanta to tour the city and get a feel for what it could offer as a host of the 2020 Summit. The Summit of the Nobel Peace Laureates, established in the 1990’s, is a forum in which the Nobel Peace Laureates and the Peace Laureate Organizations come together to address global issues with a view to encourage and support peace and human well being in the world. Currently based in Rome, the group meets in cities around the world, with its most recent visit to the United States taking place in Chicago in 2012. Atlanta would like to host the event in 2020, and if all goes well, possibly beyond.
Jim Hannan, CEO of Koch Enterprises, and Egbert Perry, CEO of the Integral Group, serve as co-chairs of the Atlanta Peace Initiative, the organization that for the past year has been courting the Nobel Peace Laureates. Earlier this month they hosted a delegation from the organization, led by President Ekaterina Zagladina, that included visits with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Gov. Brian Kemp as well as trips to the Carter Center, King Center, and Millennium Gate. The Peace Initiative is looking to showcase the city and what it has to offer – beyond the obvious of being an attractive option as a renowned international traffic hub and diverse world culture.
If all goes to plan, 2020 would be just the beginning.
Members of the Atlanta Peace Initiative would like to make Atlanta the North American headquarters for the Nobel Laureates organization, regularly hosting summits that one economic development officer called “the Olympics on steroids, and it’s permanent.” Such an effort would include the creation of a Nobel Peace District with a Peace Park – likely the under-construction Rodney Cook Sr. Park – at its core. It would also create a Nobel Peace University, a collaboration of leading educational institutions in the state that would feature lectures and classes taught by world-renowned Peace Laureates.
Rodney Cook, founder and president of the National Monuments Foundation, and another key member of the Atlanta Peace Initiative, told IAG that not only would securing Peace Summits be a boon to the state’s economy, it would create an entire new industry. “The legacy of Dr. King and Atlanta’s accessibility make the city a very appealing option,” said Cook. “(Former Atlanta mayor) Andrew Young, Bob Hope, and Rotary International are working together to put Atlanta at the center of the ‘Peace Industry’ in the U.S.”
Next up: signing off on a formal Memorandum of Understanding between the Nobel Peace Secretariat and Atlanta Peace Inc., the nonprofit headed by Hope and Young that was set up to organize the finer points of the recruiting effort. From there the goal is to secure the 2020 Peace Summit, and if all goes smoothly strengthen the city’s relationship with the organization and prove that it is capable of living up to the “City of Peace” moniker.
With Atlanta’s business community rallied behind the cause, it’s hard not to like the odds.
