Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annanis a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." He is the founder and the Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as being the chairman of The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela...
NationalityGhanaian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth8 April 1938
CityKumasi, Ghana
CountryGhana
I don't see a situation where one side will win militarily, take over Syria, and there will be peace and quiet, a clean victory.
We at the U.N. have to take some of the blame, because we have not lowered expectations creating the impression we are here to save people, even when we have very limited resources.
The U.N. power comes from concerted action of the governments.
When things are really desperate and hopeless and you can't do anything about this, and there's a sense that something must be done, that is something usually leads to the U.N.
These divisions in the international community - the Syrians bear quite a lot of the blame, but we have enabled it by the divisions between us.
We have to be very clear with the population and the countries we enter what we can do and what we cannot do.
In their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda.
National markets are held together by shared values and confidence in certain minimum standards. But in the new global market, people do not yet have that confidence.
Nelson Mandela stands as an inspiration to us all
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.
I urge the Iraqi leadership for sake of its own people... to seize this opportunity and thereby begin to end the isolation and suffering of the Iraqi people.
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.
On this International Day of UN Peacekeepers, let us pay tribute to the men and women from countries across the world who serve selflessly, tirelessly and fearlessly in UN peacekeeping operations. Let us remember the heroes who have laid down their lives in lands far from their own in the service of peace. And let us reaffirm our commitment to building a world free from the scourge of war.
Asked whether donor nations may be becoming fatigued ... The fatigue may be there, but I don't think we can justify it in the face of such misery. We may need to wake up our conscience and our conscience must force us to act.