The former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, has won UNESCO's annual peace prize. Ahtisaari was the President of Finland from 1994 to 2000. The award is known as the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize, and Ahtisaari is the recipient of the award on account of “his life-time contribution to world peace.” Mr. Ahtisaari is the founder of the NGO, Crisis Management Initiative, through which he organized a week-long meeting (September 2007) between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites to improve dialogue between the communities. According to UNESCO, in 2000, Ahtisaari also supervised the disarmament process of the IRA in Northern Ireland.
