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Global Awards for Alexander G. Friedrich Dr. Alexander Gunther Friedrich, former United Nations Executive Secretary, thereafter founding chairman of the Development Policy Forum of the then German Foundation for International Development (DSE), has been honoured with eminent international awards. The American Biographical Institute has bestowed on him the Twentieth Century Achievement Award as one of "Five Hundred Leaders of Influence". The International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, UK, has honoured him with the Achievement Award for "Outstanding People of the 20th Century", and now with the International Order of Merit (IOM) for services to International Cooperation and Development Diplomacy. A.G. Friedrich holds a DSc degree from the Hamburg University. He was researcher at the Oxford University and professsor and dean at the Monrovia University for land use policy and industrialisation of developing countries. Friedrich was one of the first German officials who became active in the field of international development cooperation. After a career in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), as mission chief in Monrovia (1959-1961) and section chief in Rome (1961-1966), Dr. Friedrich served in the newly established Industry Cooperative Programme (ICP) of the UN system (1966-1979) in Rome, Geneva and New York. ICP is today recognised as the pioneer on the road towards Public-Private Partnership ("PPP"), closely related to UN Millennium Declaration 2000. Based on this Millennium Declaration, he published, together with his Chef de Cabinet: Friedrich, Alexander G. and Valence E. Gale: Public-Private Partnership within the United Nations System - Now and Then. Bielefeld: Bertelsmann 2004, vi + 147 pages. Under his leadership as Executive Secretary, the ICP started the industrial globalisation process within the UN system, introducing the term Joint Venture for enterprises in developing economies with different ownership patterns. A.G. Friedrich thus advised governments, multilateral agencies, local entrepreneurs and transnational corporations. He encouraged them to transfer managerial skills, technology and marketing systems, together with foreign direct investment, for the mutual benefit of industrial and developing countries. The overriding objective was to create jobs and generate income. "In view of the fact that today private capital flows far surpass official development assistance, Dr. Friedrich's strategic approach in ICP has become a model for global economic cooperation," says Dieter Brauer, editor of well-known journal 'D+C'. After his retirement from ICP in 1979, A.G. Friedrich was invited to use his extensive international experience and his personal contacts around the world to build the DSE Development Policy Forum at Villa Borsig in Berlin into an important meeting place for informal discussions among international opinion leaders on development issues. Since his retirement from the Development Policy Forum in 1989, Friedrich has served as advisor to the European Union's Commission at CARICOM and ASEAN. He maintains contacts with the World Bank to facilitate cooperation with German and international business community. The Global Cooperation Council congratulates Dr. Friedrich, whose advice we have always cherished. - RAJ