United Nations Messenger of Peace is a special post-nominal honorific title of authority bestowed by the United Nations to "distinguished individuals, carefully selected from the fields of art, music, literature and sports, who have agreed to help focus worldwide attention on the work of the United Nations." Globally, present and past messengers of peace are the only public figures that are or may be legally and diplomatically known as a "United Nations Goodwill Ambassador". Other United Nations goodwill ambassador programmes in the UN system participants assign their title of authority (commission) using the agency name or patent program acronym or abbreviation such as: UN Women Goodwill Ambassador; UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador; UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador; UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador; and other legal designations following their name.
The messengers are initially chosen to serve for a period of three years; however, all of the current thirteen messengers have served for more than five years, some of them as long as 15 or 20 years. The Messengers of Peace idea was started in 1997 as a central addition to the system of UN goodwill ambassadors and cause advocates, which has been operated by the different UN agencies since 1954, when UNICEF appointed Danny Kaye as its first goodwill ambassador.[1]
Whilst the ambassadors and advocates mainly promote the work of the UN specialized agency or division they were appointed by, a Messenger of Peace is intended to promote the work of the United Nations in general and is commissioned directly by the Secretary-General of the United Nations most often with a formal ceremony.