When I spoke to you a few weeks ago, you asked where do our Peace Scholars go. The Rotary Foundation does a survey annually so here is last year’s survey.

·        24% work for Nongovernmental organisations

·        18% are in Research/Education

·        13% are in “other”

·        12% are in government agencies

·        12% are in Multilateral agencies

·        7% are in Consulting

·        6% are in Law Enforcement and Military

·        5% Business

·        3% in Law

Top employers of our RPF alumni include UN agencies [UNICEF, UNFP, UNHCR, UN Women, and UNESCO each have multiple alumni] World Bank, Red Cross both nationally and internationally, the World Food Programme, and a wide variety of large  and small NGOs focused on peacebuilding or development.

To add a couple of recent developments, Chulalongkorn in Thailand has been advised that they will no longer be a Peace Centre and a committee will be set up to locate a new home for a Peace Centre in Asia. A District Governor in Nigeria decided to form as Peace Centre which he stated would be the second in Sub-Saharan Africa and applied for government land on which to build it. He has been told that he cannot use the name Rotary as we require high standards of  curriculum and the qualifications of the university staff involved, to set the standards for the selection of Fellows, a highly rated University, and international recognition of the degrees and certificates awarded to graduates amongst the many details involved. Enthusiasm is a virtue for Rotarians but we must protect the very high standards we set for our programmes!