VU Amsterdam Nobel Peace Prize Nomination

On the 27th of May, we had the honour of hosting Alokiir Malual Aguer Diing at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for a very special Nobel Peace Prize nomination ceremony. For several years, Wolfgang Wagner has shared his ability to make a nomination with a committee made up mostly of students from several VU programmes, which I was very happy to chair this year. Our 2026 nominee is the extraordinary Alokiir, who has spent most of her life advocating tirelessly for female representation in politics and peaceful resolution to conflict in her native South Sudan, often at great personal risk.

We were very lucky to also be joined by the Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, who contextualised Alokiir's work as part of a lineage of great African peacebuilders, several of whom went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Our sincere thanks go to the Archbishop for making the time for the ceremony and to my colleague Jan Jorrit Hasselaar for helping to facilitate this.

Thank you also to the VU Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, and particularly Gregor Halff and Ben Crum, for the support that allowed us to bring Alokiir to Amsterdam for the ceremony.

Most importantly, we want to thank Alokiir, who went to enormous effort to make it to the ceremony (travelling for almost as long as she was in the Netherlands). It meant so much to the members of the VU Nobel committee and those that attended the ceremony to get to meet her in person and hear more about her life dedicated to such worthy causes. We hope to see her again, perhaps even in Oslo!