Tommy Koh, Runa Khan and Bo Kyi Win the 68th Ramon Magsaysay Awards
The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation named Singapore's Tommy Koh, Bangladesh's Runa Khan and Myanmar's Bo Kyi winners of the 68th Ramon Magsaysay Awards (2026) on 31 August 2026, the 119th birth anniversary of Ramon Magsaysay, 7th President of the Philippines. Koh, a veteran diplomat and legal expert, was pivotal to the adoption of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982. Khan founded the Bangladeshi NGO Friendship, which serves riverine *char* communities. Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner, co-founded the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in 2000. Each receives a medallion, a citation certificate and USD 50,000 on 15 November 2026 in Manila.
The Ramon Magsaysay Award was instituted in 1957 by the Philippines government with the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; it is called Asia's Nobel Prize | It is named after Ramon Magsaysay, the 7th President of the Philippines | Philippines: capital Manila, currency Philippine Peso