From correspondents in Stockholm County, Sweden, 03:30 PM IST

The Nobel Peace Prize is regarded as the top award for efforts towards a more peaceful world and prominent laureates include Mother Teresa (1979), the Dalai Lama (1989) and Nelson Mandela (1993).

The award is handed out by a committee of the Norwegian parliament and the winners since 1998, including the citations given by the academy, were:

2008 - Martti Ahtisaari, Finnish ex-president and veteran peace broker was awarded the prize, with the Nobel Committee citing his efforts to solve conflicts on several continents and over three decades.

2007 - Former US vice president Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - 'for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change'.

2006 - Economic expert Muhammad Yunus and founder of the Grameen Bank, Bangladesh, and the Grameen Bank - 'for their efforts to create economic and social development from below'.

2005 - The UN International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, and IAEA General Secretary Mohamed ElBaradei - 'for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way'.

2004 - Wangari Muta Maathai, Kenya - 'for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace'.

2003 - Shirin Ebadi, Iran - 'for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children'.

2002 - Former US president Jimmy Carter - 'for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development'.

2001 - The UN, and former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan of Ghana - 'for their work for a better organised and more peaceful world'.

2000 - Former president of South Korea Kim Dae-Jung - 'for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular'.

1999 - Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans frontieres), Geneva - 'in recognition of the organization's pioneering humanitarian work on several continents'.

1998 - John Hume and David Trimble, Britain - 'for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland'.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)