Kofi Annan
Ghanaian Diplomat
7th Secretary General of the UN from 1997 – 2006
2001 Nobel Peace Prize
Kofi Annan was a member of The Elders, an independent group
of global leaders working for peace and human rights. He later became its
Chairman.
Under his leadership, the UN introduced the Millennium
Development Goals in 2000, in which countries of the world committed to ending
poverty within 15 years. Under his leadership two intergovernmental bodies, the
Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council, were established.
Mr. Annan played a central role in the creation of the
Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He launched the Global
Compact initiative, the world’s largest effort to promote corporate social
responsibility, in 1999.
His reputation as a mediator was burnished by his success in
halting a spiralling conflict in Kenya in 2007, when rival claims to the
presidency caused ethnic massacres in which more than 1,200 died. Mr. Annan put
the rivals in a room and told them: “There is only one Kenya”. He then
persuaded one of them to accept the post of prime minister in a joint
government. The violence ended.
Failures
But earlier in his career, Mr. Annan’s record was less
successful. He was head of U.N. peacekeeping in 1994, when he acknowledges he
should have done more to help prevent the slaughter of 8,00,000 Rwandan Tutsis
and moderate Hutus.
Mr. Annan was unable to bring peace to Syria and bring to
rest the failures of diplomacy in Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Cyprus, Somalia and
Iraq
LESSONS FROM LIFE
OF:
Education
Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is
the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.
Education is a human right with immense power to transform.
On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable
human development.
Gender Equality
Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a
precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting
sustainable development and building good governance.
There is no development strategy more beneficial to society
as a whole - women and men alike - than the one which involves women as central
players.
Common Action
More than ever before in human history, we share a common
destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is
why we have the United Nations.
What governments and people don't realise is that sometimes
the collective interest - the international interest - is also the national
interest.
Leadership
I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders
must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned
about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.
We have the means and the capacity to deal with our
problems, if only we can find the political will.
Climate Change
We need to think of the future and the planet we are going
to leave to our children and their children.
On climate change, we often don't fully appreciate that it
is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen.
Globalisation
We must ensure that the global market is embedded in broadly
shared values and practices that reflect global social needs, and that all the
world's people share the benefits of globalization.
We have to choose between a global market driven only by
calculations of short-term profit, and one which has a human face.
United Nations
In the 21st century, I believe the mission of the United
Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity and
dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion.
Time and again, when member states and the governments are
faced with an insoluble problem, and they're under pressure to do something,
that something usually ends up being referred to the U.N.
If the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for
the world's people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?
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