Founder and President of Peace and Sport, Joël Bouzou has arrived in Ghana to deliver a one-day lecture on ‘’Peace and Sports’’.

The lecture put together by business and investments outfit, 9BS Group of Companies will take place on Friday, May 18 at the Swiss Spirit Alisa Hotel in Accra.

The former French athlete and World Champion of modern pentathlon in 1987 touched down at Kotoka International Airport on Thursday night.

Speaking to the media, the 62-year-old promised to invest in the efforts to consolidate peace in the country.

He said with tensions rising across the world, it had become even more important for citizens to make conscious efforts to safeguard global peace.

He added that sports has proven to be a vital asset in promoting unity among people from diverse backgrounds and orientations.

Peace and Sports is a Monaco-based organization under the High Patronage of H.S.H. Prince Albert II.

It was founded in 2007, with the objective to bring the structuring values of sport to the heart of communities in crisis throughout the world, making the sport a vehicle for tolerance, respect and citizenship at the service of sustainable peace.

The backbone of its action is a group of over 80 high-level athletes, called “Champions for Peace” who dynamically support the organization’s activities at all levels.

In November 2011, Joël Bouzou was elected President of the World Olympians Association (WOA), the only international organization which unites all of the 100,000 athletes from 145 countries to have competed in an Olympic event.

He is the current President of the French Federation of Modern Pentathlon, Vice President and former Secretary-General (1997 to 2012) of the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) and a highly accomplished Modern Pentathlete himself.

Mr Bouzou has participated in four Olympic Games (Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984, Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992) winning a bronze medal during the 1984 Games. He won the World Championship title in Modern Pentathlon in 1987.

In 1991, Joël Bouzou founded the association “Rassemblement par le Sport” (“Together through Sport”) and created the “Champions in the Street” program, which helps the social insertion of young people through sport in city suburbs, using champions as role models.

A French national, Bouzou has been awarded the Legion of Honour (the highest decoration in France), and the National Order of Merit. He has also been decorated with the French medal ‘Médaille d’Or de la Jeunesse et des Sports’ (‘Gold Medal for Youth and Sports’).

In 2010, Bouzou was awarded a Diploma Honoris Causa in Humanities from the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa-Rica in recognition of “his unique worldwide leadership role in promoting peace and mutual understanding among different cultures, and his leadership of organizations devoted to these objectives.”

Mr Bouzou is currently Advisor to H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco, Administrator of the A.S. Monaco Football Club and Member of the IOC Sport and Active Society Commission.