[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 7, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5851-S5852]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                THE 2003 UNITED NATIONS POPULATION AWARD

 Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I would like to call the attention 
of my colleagues to the fact that an American activist has been chosen 
as the recipient of the 2003 United Nations Population Award for only 
the second time in the history of the honor. This year's beneficiary, 
Werner Fornos, president of the Washington, DC-based Population 
Institute, is a well-known figure on Capitol Hill and a long-time 
advocate for international access to voluntary methods of family 
planning.
  I ask that the following press release honoring Mr. Fornos' receipt 
of this prestigious award be printed in the Record.
  The press release follows.

        Werner Fornos Wins 2003 United Nations Population Award

       Werner Fornos, a longtime Washington, D.C. resident and 
     special advisor to former U.S. House of Representatives 
     Speaker John W. McCormack, has been named the winner of the 
     2003 United Nations Population Award in the individual 
     category.
       ``The selection is in recognition of your outstanding 
     contribution to the awareness of population growth,'' Thoraya 
     Ahmed Obaid, secretary of the award committee and executive 
     director of the U.N. Population Fund, wrote to Fornos 
     informing him of his selection.
       The Family Planning Association of Kenya will receive the 
     award in the institutional category. Founded in 1962 as a 
     volunteer-based nongovernmental organization, it has 
     pioneered the family planning movement in Kenya, promoting 
     the provision of sexual and reproductive health services 
     within the

[[Page S5852]]

     context of reproductive rights and the empowerment of young 
     people.
       Under the chairmanship of Jean-Claude Alexandre, Haiti's 
     Ambassador to the United Nations, the award committee also 
     consists of representatives of Burundi, Cape Verde, the 
     Kyrgyz Republic, Lesotho, the Republic of Moldova, and the 
     Netherlands, together with a representative of the U.N. 
     Secretary-General and Mrs. Obaid.
       The citation is the only regular United Nations award of 
     its kind and consists of a medal, a diploma and a monetary 
     prize of $12,500 to each of the winners. The committee 
     selected the Family Planning Association of Kenya as the 2003 
     laureate in the institutional category.
       The award ceremony and reception is tentatively scheduled 
     for June 18 at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
       Born in Leipzig, Germany, in November 1933, Fornos was 
     separated from his family when the apartment building in 
     which they were living was destroyed in an allied bombing 
     raid.
       He later became the ``mascot'' of the 29th Infantry 
     Division of the United States Army, and stowed away four 
     times on troop ships and airplanes in efforts to emigrate to 
     the United States before he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Jaime 
     Fornos of Newton, Massachusetts.
       A 1965 graduate of the University of Maryland University 
     College, which recently named him Alumnus of the Year, with a 
     degree in government and politics, Fornos has served in the 
     Maryland state legislature and as the state's Assistant 
     Secretary of Human Resources and Manpower Administrator. He 
     also served as a special assistant to U.S. Assistant 
     Secretary of Labor for labor-management relations and Deputy 
     Assistant Manpower Administrator.
       Prior to being named as president of the Population 
     Institute, Fornos was executive director of the Population 
     Action Council; executive director of Planned Parenthood of 
     Washington, D.C.; and assistant professor at George 
     Washington University, where he headed its Population 
     Information Program.
       Fornos has been a management consultant in family planning 
     implementation and effectiveness to the U.S. Agency for 
     International Development, the American Public Health 
     Association, and Westinghouse Health Services. He has worked 
     on population and family planning projects for Tunisia, 
     Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Mexico, the Philippines, China, 
     Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Kenya.
       He has addressed plenary sessions of virtually every major 
     international population meeting since the 1974 World 
     Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania, including the 
     1984 International Population Conference in Mexico City, and 
     the 1994 International Conference on Population and 
     Development in Cairo, Egypt. Fornos has been named Humanist 
     of the Year by the American Humanist Association and he is a 
     recipient of Germany's Order of Merit, the highest 
     distinction granted by the German government to a non-German 
     citizen in recognition of humanitarian efforts.
       He is an honorary professor of international relations at 
     Szechuan University in China; a member of the board of 
     directors of the United Nations Association of the United 
     States; an elected member of the International Union for the 
     Scientific Study of Population; and he is the recipient of 
     several Paul Harris Fellowships from Rotary 
     International.

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