Born in Oslo as a daughter of Gudmund Harlem, Brundtland was educated as a medical doctor ( cand. med.

Brundtland became Norwegian Prime Minister for two subsequent terms: the first was from 9 May 1986 until 16 October 1989.

In 1983, Brundtland was invited by then United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar to establish and chair the World Commission on Environment and Development ( WCED ), widely referred to as the Brundtland Commission, developing the broad political concept of sustainable development in the course of extensive public hearings that were distinguished by their inclusiveness and published its report Our Common Future in April 1987.

The Brundtland Commission provided the momentum for the 1992 Earth Summit / UNCED, that was headed by Maurice Strong, who had been a prominent member of the Brundtland Commission.

Brundtland was elected Director-General of the World Health Organization in May 1998.

Brundtland was succeeded on 21 July 2003 by Jong-Wook Lee.

Brundtland was awarded the Charlemagne Prize of the city of Aachen.

In 2006 Brundtland was a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons who reviewed the work of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ( UNCTAD ).

The term ' sustainable development ' was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that " meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The Brundtland Commission set up by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the pioneer of sustainable development, provided the momentum for first Earth Summit 1992 – the United Nations Conference on Environmental Development ( UNCED ), that was also headed by Maurice Strong, who had been a prominent member of the Brundtland Commission – and also for Agenda 21.

In the mid-1980s, a 500-page report ( Brundtland Report ) which Bolin was involved with contributed to the setting up of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ).

Following the resignation of Brundtland in 1996, Thorbjørn Jagland was elected leader of the Labour Party and became Prime Minister, while Stoltenberg was appointed Minister of Finance, an office he held until 17 October 1997 when Jagland and the entire government resigned.

He held both positions until 1992, when he was elected party leader, succeeding long-time leader Gro Harlem Brundtland.

On 23 October 1996, Gro Harlem Brundtland informed Jagland she was withdrawing from politics and leaving him as head of government.

When asked if Brundtland was sure about Jagland, he replied, " Yes.

This ultimatum was based on the fact that Jagland had assumed the Prime Minister post based on the votes collected by Brundtland in the 1993 election, which provided an unclear parliamentary basis for governing.

Sustainability, itself, was first defined by the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations in 1987.

The Chairman of the Commission, Gro Harlem Brundtland, was appointed by Javier Perez de Cuellar, former Secretary General of the United Nations, in December 1983.

Gro Harlem Brundtland who was the former Prime Minister of Norway and was chosen due to her strong background in the sciences and public health.

In this capacity, Brundtland adopted a far-reaching approach to public health, establishing a Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, chaired by Jeffrey Sachs, and addressing violence as a major public health issue.

Brundtland spearheaded the movement, now worldwide, to achieve the abolition of cigarette smoking by education and persuasion.

Brundtland's hallmark political activities have been chronicled by her husband, Arne Olav Brundtland, in his two bestsellers, Married to Gro ( ISBN 82-516-1647-6 ) and the sequel, Still married to Gro ( ISBN 82-05-30726-1 ).

Brundtland narrowly escaped assassination by Anders Behring Breivik on 22 July 2011.

In 1987, the publication of the Brundtland Report by the United Nations had paved the way to establish a environmental governance.

The program, inaugurated by then Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, is the longest continually operating international business school partnership in China.

His debates with long-time adversary Gro Harlem Brundtland became legendary in Norway and were by several accounts based on personal as well as political differences.

A minority government led by Gro Harlem Brundtland took over through the rest of the parliamentary period.

In 1987, the United Nations released the Brundtland Report, which included what is now one of the most widely recognised definitions: " Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Some of Norways most known musicians, Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge of the electronica duo Röyksopp, both grew up and started their careers in Tromsø.

Under their joint auspices, " VISION 2020: The Right to Sight ", was officially launched by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of WHO in Geneva on February 18, 1999, and further promoted by IAPB at the Sixth Assembly in Beijing, in September 1999.

Röyksopp's members Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland are childhood friends with board member Gaute Barlindhaug of the Insomnia Festival, and the superstars decided to do the gig for free to help save the further existence of the electronic music festival in their hometown.

The Brundtland Commission also provided momentum for Agenda 21.

In May 2007, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Brundtland, as well as Ricardo Lagos ( the former president of Chile ), and Han Seung-soo ( the former foreign minister of South Korea ), to serve as UN Special Envoys for Climate Change.

Brundtland now works for Pepsi as a consultant.

Gro Harlem Brundtland is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

She had been on the island of Utøya hours before the massacre there to give a speech to the AUF camp ; Breivik stated that he originally intended for Brundtland to be the main target of the attack, but he had been delayed while travelling from Oslo.

During his trial in 2012, Breivik revealed detailed assassination plans for Brundtland.

Brundtland received an operation for uterine cancer in 2002 at Ullevål University Hospital.

Following intense media attention surrounding the matter, Brundtland decided to change residence once more, back to Norway, and she also announced that she would be paying for the treatments herself.

The present members of this group are Desmond Tutu, Graça Machel, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Lakhdar Brahimi, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson, Muhammad Yunus, and Aung San Suu Kyi ( with an empty chair for her ).

In 1996 when Brundtland resigned, Thorbjørn Jagland stepped in for her and became the new Norwegian Prime Minister.

Jagland said, " Martin had wanted to work for Gro Brundtland " ...

Brundtland also said that she wished for Jens Stoltenberg or Gunnar Berge to become the leader of the Labour Party.

From the end of the 1970s however, the party started to lose voters to the right, leading to a turn to the right for the party under Gro Harlem Brundtland during the 1980s.

Brundtland, a Norwegian medical doctor with a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University, threw her full support behind the idea for a binding multilateral treaty on tobacco control.