Dudley Senanayake Foundation and the Friedrcih Naumann Stiftung have organised the Dudley Senanayake Memorial Oration Firday, September 14 at 5.15 p.m. at the BCIS Hall at the BMICH. The orator will be Gordon Mackay, the acting Secretary General of Liberal International and a former member of the South African Parliament from 2014 to 2018, where he served as a senior member of the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Energy Minister.
Gordon Mackay is famed as a doer, a thinker and a good orator who has achieved great heights in the interests of his country.
He was instrumental in blocking the highly contentious nuclear deal, promoting greater integration of renewables into South Africa’s energy mix and refining an energy policy to adjust to the increasing decentralisation of electricity production. He is also one of only three MPs deployed by his party to lead policy decsions with leading banks,institutional investors and international governmental organisations. Gordon was appointed Acting Secretary General of Liberal International which is the Global Federation of Liberal Political Parties in January 2018.
This is a wide network which includes seven European Prime Ministers, two African Presidents, the Canadian Prime Minister, various Finance and Energy Ministers and countless leaders of the Opposition.
As part of his mission, Gordon has worked with the political leadership of Liberal International to introduce a strong focus on climate change and sustainability. He is also working closely with member parties to redefine liberalism for the 21st century with a special focus on the liberal position on institutional and race based inequality.
His work experience before entering parliament was working for UNICEF in New York in the Office of Emergency Programmes with a specific focus on peace building and recovery in post conflict settings.
Among his many qualifications are a Masters Degree in International Studies from the University of London, an Honours Degree in Development Economics from the University of Johannesburg, a Post Graduate Diploma in Humanitarian Studies from the School of Tropical Medicine, University of Liverpool and professional qualifications in Energy Economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.
Both the Dudley Senanayake Foundation and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung are honoured that a scholar of such eminence with wide political experience and an enviable knowledge of liberalism has agrreed to deliver the Dudley Senanayake Memorial Oration this year.
Last year, the distinguished orator was Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The chosen date coincides with the 6oth anniversay of the worldwide work of the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung which is on the same day as the lecture this year.
The Resident Representative of the Stiftung is Ms. Sagarica Delgoda. The Chairman of the Dudley Senanayake Foundation is Minister D.M. Swaminathan.
The directors of the Foundation are Minister John Amaratunge,Minister Rauff Hakeem,Minister Sarath Amunugama, Minister Ruwan Wijewardene, Bradman Weerakoon,Rukman Senanayake,Ranel Wijesinghe, Ms.Ilica Karunaratne,Dr. Channa Ranasinghe, Rohan Edirisinghe, Jith Peiris, Ms.Swarna Amaratunge andSecretary to the Foundation, M. Shalini Senanayake.