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
The United Nations needs U.S. leadership, but the U.S. also needs the United Nations, ... We look forward to working with you and the administration in ensuring that the U.S. is ... back in the fold with the question of arrears, behind us as we move ahead in strengthening and reshaping this organization.
I would be surprised if the United States would want to place themselves ... in that situation, of being the ones who are seen to be against the interests of the poor, as being the ones who want to ignore the needs and the human dignity of others,
would be insufficient to address, even as a temporary measure, all the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people.
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.
In their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda.
We need to ensure the poorest in the planet - who will be hardest hit by the financial crisis - are not forgotten.
We need to keep hope alive and strive to do better.
We don't need any more promises. We need to start keeping the promises we already made.
Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and therefore a basic human right.
Many African leaders refuse to send their troops on peace keeping missions abroad because they probably need their armies to intimidate their own populations.
We need to think of the future and the planet we are going to leave to our children and their children.
too early to say who's going to take charge and who's going to run the government.
We will take the measures to make sure poor and rich have access to the medications and the vaccines required,
The scale of this tragedy almost defies our darkest imagination. We meet today to prevent a second shockwave of deaths and to prevent further suffering.