Martti Ahtisaari

HELSINKI, Finland — Once you have won the Nobel Peace Prize, what do you do next?

Martti Ahtisaari, the 2008 winner, says it's time to tackle youth unemployment — "perhaps the greatest challenge in the world." The former Finnish president said he hoped the award for his efforts to build a lasting peace from Africa and Asia to Europe and the Middle East would help his future mediation work.

But in an interview with AP Television News, he said he hoped to work more on the issue of youth unemployment.

"Estimates are there that in the decade to come there will be 1.3 billion youngsters under 30 entering (the) labor market ... and with traditional means we can employ only 300 million. So what do we do with nearly a billion youngsters who don't have any hope for work or better life?"

Ahtisaari said the answer is to provide training for existing jobs, "and then make as many of these youngsters into entrepreneurs and see that they also get funding."

Ahtisaari has been a diplomat, primary school teacher and the head of a U.N. operation that brought independence to Namibia in 1990. He was chosen Friday to receive the $1.4 million peace prize for work in conflicts from Namibia and Aceh, Indonesia, to Kosovo and Iraq.

Ahtisaari said he was "extremely pleased" to have won but also said, at 71, it might be time to slow down a bit. He said he hoped the prize would help his colleagues at his nongovernment organization, Crisis Management Initiative. Ahtisaari said he was going to celebrate "very quietly" because he had agreed to have lunch today with the Finnish president, his successor, Tarja Halonen.