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
Kofi Annan quotes about
Tragic experience has taught us that we cannot wait until the last minute to help,
Millions still live poor and isolated lives. Millions more have found their lives disrupted, even destroyed, by global economic forces they do not understand and cannot control,
Obviously, our proceedings and operations have been impeded, and if this continues we will have to take some very hard and critical decisions as to the usefulness of staying there if we cannot operate,
made it quite clear that the United Nations cannot condone the Turkish incursion into northern Iraq.
Spending on the battle against AIDS in the developing world needs to rise to roughly five times its present level, ... The developing countries themselves are ready to provide their share ... but they cannot do it alone.
Whatever our differences, in our interdependent world, we stand or fall together, ... Even the strongest among us cannot succeed alone...We cannot succeed without the leadership of the strong and the engagement of all.
Whether our challenge is peacemaking, nation-building, democratization or responding to natural or man-made disaster, we have seen that even the strongest amongst us cannot succeed alone.
I understand and share their anguish. But it cannot justify violence, least of all attacks on innocent people.
Their deaths are a terrible tragedy that cannot be justified.
But while some countries produce more than they need to feed their people, others do not, and many of these cannot afford to import enough to make up the gap.
a unique evil, which cannot simply be consigned to the past or forgotten.
This will be our first encounter, ... I have no idea what sort of atmosphere it's going to be, what he is like, how he reacts. Obviously, this is going to be a very difficult discussion. It is an issue that has persisted for 10 years.
The practice differs widely, ... But at heart we are dealing with universal values: to be merciful, to be tolerant, to love thy neighbor.
The prevailing mood is one of optimism, ... The parties have proclaimed ... their determination to work together. At long last we can all sense a new wave of movement.