Member of European Parliament; Board Member, World Forum for Ethics in Business; Belgium/United Kingdom
Gone is the time when we can act without being accountable for our actions. It is on us to demand something more; to translate the discussions of the coming forum into tangible actions. To build a society of conscience that we can be proud of.
Nirj Deva is the first person in history to be born in one continent (Asia), to be elected to parliament in another continent (UK) and then elected to represent that country as a member of a multi-national Parliament (the European Parliament). He became in 1981, Chairman of the Bow Group, a leading British political think-tank.
In 1985, he was honored as the first Asian to be appointed by Her Majesty The Queen as a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London.
In 1992 he was elected to the United Kingdom Parliament, as the Conservative Member for Brentford and Isleworth (1992-1997). Nirj has subsequently been a Member of the European Parliament for the past 12 years, elected in 1999 from a Constituency of 7.5 million voters in the South East of England.
Appointed Vice President of the Development Committee in 2009, he remains a Member of the South Asia Delegation and of the Subcommittee on Human Rights. He is a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Arts, Hon. Life President of the EU-India Chamber of Commerce, and Patron of the International Monarchist League. His phenomenal work on International Development led to his nomination for the post of Secretary General of the United Nations to succeed Kofi Annan in 2006. In 2011, Nirj was awarded MEP of the Year for Development.
In 2012, Nirj has been honored with the prestigious Priyadarshni Academy award for his services to international development. In 2012 he was nominated by a major political group and came second in the election to be the President of the European Parliament, beating the liberal candidate into third place.