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
Let us not be deceived when we look at a clear blue sky into thinking that all is well. All is not well,
I think that peacekeeping can do quite a lot, if they are given the right mandate with the commensurate resources to get the job done.
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.
Drugs have destroyed many lives, but wrongheaded governmental policies have destroyed many more. I think it's obvious that after 40 years of war on drugs, it has not worked. There should be decriminalization of drugs.
The main point in our report was to recommend decriminalization...because of the way laws are applied, which have not worked. We have applied them for decades and it's got the prisons filled with lots of young people who sometimes come out destroyed for having half an ounce... We should approach it through education and health issues rather than a brutal reaction... There is need for change in policy, but it has to start with debate and discussion... I think the whole approach has to be reviewed.
If there is one area where equity is crucial and essential, I think it should be the issue of water.
If we do not get a universal acceptance of the constitution the likelihood of the violence continuing is there. If it had been an inclusive exercise -- as when everybody had embraced the constitution and everyone saw his interest protected by the constitution -- I think it would have been a rallying exercise. We are not there at this stage
If we can come up with innovations and train young people to take on new jobs, and if we can switch to clean energy, I think we have the capacity to build this world not dependent on fossil-fuel. I think it will happen, and it won't destroy economy.
As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict [over] water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world.
If our hopes of building a better and safer world are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the engagement of volunteers more than ever.
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.