I don't want anything for myself. I want everything for Afghan. I worked pro bono for 13 years. I didn't hesitate for one moment after 9/11 to resign from my position of comfort at the World Bank in New York and to come and serve.

We need to create jobs for 300,000 youth graduating from high school in the next three years. We need to produce growth so we can have an economic system that can turn our natural wealth into a productive system. We need services, because poverty reduction cannot take place without effective citizenship.

Terrorism attacks peoples' trust in the system of their state. There is protection, but only if there is collective action and collective understanding about how to really deal with this phenomenon.

The job of an elected president is to overcome the past and change the playing field.

We live in an interconnected world, and you cannot prevent people from leaving. What you need to do is to create opportunities. At the same time, people are also coming back.

Economics taught in most of the elite universities are practically useless in my context. My country [Afghanistan] is dominated by drug economy and a mafia; textbook economics does not work in my context.

There's no place for mob justice in Afghanistan.