Nizami Ganjavi International Award

In 2012, The Nizami Ganjavi International Center established the “Nizami Ganjavi International Award” to be presented to very distinguished personalities and institutions embodying the very values that Nizami promoted through his poetry to celebrate the great Azerbaijan poet Nizami Ganjavi, for the many gifts he has given us, for the inspiration he has bequeathed to the profound humanity that calls to the better angels of our nature through the centuries and into the future.

Award Recipients

Vaira Vike-Freiberga

President of Latvia 1999-2007; Co-Chair, NGIC

Ismail Serageldin

Co-Chair, NGIC Vice-President of the World Bank 1992-2000

Melanne Verveer

Former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues

Suleyman Demirel

9th President of Turkiye

Bill Clinton

42nd President of the United States

Margaret Thatcher

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1979-1990

His Majesty Abdullah II Bin Al-Hussain

King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden

Queen of Sweden

Boutros Boutros-Ghali

6th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Henry Kissinger

56th United States Secretary of State

Rosen Plevneliev

President of the Republic of Bulgaria 2012-2017

Mehriban Aliyeva

First Vice President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Arthur Schneier

Senior Rabbi of New York City’s Park East Synagogue

Ashraf Ghani

President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2014-2021

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

Recipient: Kerry Kennedy

Wendy Fisher

President of the Board of Trustees of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Muhammad Yunus

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2006 Founder, Grameen Park

Abdel Fattah El-Sisi

6th President of the Arab Republic of Egypt

Marianna V. Vardinoyannis

Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO

John S. McCain III

Recipient: Cindy McCain, Chair of the Board of McCain Institute

On behalf of the Greek People

Recipient: Prokopios Pavlopoulos, President of the Greece 2015-2020

Jeffrey Sachs

Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on SDG

Kailash Satyarthi

Nobel Peace Prize Recipient, Founder of Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation

Helen Clark

Prime Minister of New Zealand 1999-2008 Administrator of UNDP 2009-2017

Tatiana Valovaya

Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Director-General of the World Health Organization

Gordon Brown

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom & Northern Ireland 2007-2010

Jose Ramos-Horta

President of East Timur

Winnie Byanyima

Executive Director of the UNAIDS

Miguel Angel Moratinos

High-Representative for the UN Alliance of Civilizations

Jean-Claude Trichet

President of the European Central Bank 2003-2011; Governor of the Bank of France 1993-2003

Wolfgang Ischinger

President of the Foundation Council, Munich Security Conference

Bajram Begaj

President of the Republic of Albania