The Geneva Airport has announced that it will rename its protocol lounge ‘Espace Kofi Annan’.

The move is in honour of the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan who died in 2018.

He would have turned 82 on April 8, 2020 and it was on this same day that the Geneva Airport announced its decision.

The former Nobel laureate’s wife Nane Annan said “I am deeply moved that my late husband, Kofi Annan, is honoured in this way.

“Kofi believed that with goodwill and working together, nations can solve seemingly insurmountable problems,” the member of the Kofi Annan Foundation Board added.

Head of the Swiss Mission to the United Nations and other international organisations, Ambassador Valentin Zellweger said it is in working side by side with governments, the academic and research worlds, the private sector and civil society that the world will discover ways out of crises and develop solutions that can avert further ones.

“This working together, for the good of all, corresponds with the vision that Mr Annan was able to infuse into multilateral action.

In a statement, the Kofi Annan Foundation said the “gesture honours a man who unceasingly fought for international cooperation to tackle global challenges, something which has never been more relevant than today, given the global crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Foundation described the late Annan as a man who worked to make the multilateral system stronger, more effective and open to collaboration with the various sectors of society.

The Kofi Annan Foundation was founded in Switzerland in 2007 by former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Kofi Annan.

The Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that works to promote better global governance and strengthen the capacities of people and countries to achieve a fairer, more peaceful world.

Kofi Annan chose Geneva as a place to live after he left the United Nations and as a place to set up his own foundation.

Selected phrases from Kofi Annan’s speeches as well as images highlighting his work will make up the new decor of the protocol lounge, serving as a source of inspiration for world leaders who come to Geneva to negotiate at the United Nations and other international organisations.

The inauguration of the Kofi Annan Space will take place as soon as measures to counter the coronavirus pandemic allow.

A selection of the images that will feature in the protocol lounge: