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Kofi Annan Quotes
1938–2018 Ghana
Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 1938 – 18 August 2018) was 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.
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You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.
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.
In today’s world, the security of every one of us is linked to that of everyone else.
Truman Library address (2006)
All our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated.
We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race. We all share the same basic values.
Simply Living: The Spirit of the Indigenous People (1999)
You have said that your first priority is the eradication of extreme poverty.
I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time — without UN approval and much broader support from the international community.
The international community . . . allows nearly 3 billion people—almost half of all humanity—to subsist on $2 or less a day in a world of unprecedented wealth.
We need to create a world that is equitable, that is stable and a world where we bear in mind the needs of others, and not only what we need immediately. We are all in the same boat.
When women thrive, all of society benefits and succeeding generations are given a better start in life.
Gender equality is critical for the development and peace of every nation.
It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.
The report [by a UN commission on Darfur] demonstrates beyond all doubt that the last two years have been little short of hell on earth for our fellow human beings in Darfur.
Today's real borders are not between nations, but between powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated. Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another.
Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy.
Children will be able to learn by doing, not just through instruction - they will be able to open up new fronts for their education, particularly peer-to-peer learning.
“If one is going to err, one should err on the side of liberty and freedom.”
Farewell Speech (2006)
If no serious action is taken, [said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2003] the number of slum dwellers worldwide is projected to rise over the next 30 years to about 2 billion.
There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.
“The world is not ours to keep. We hold it in trust for future generations.”
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