Leadership is never given on a silver platter, one has to earn it.

I've been a victor of circumstance.

Of course, I am the first democratically elected woman president in Africa, and that raises a lot of expectations. Because I represent the aspirations of women all over Africa, I must succeed for them. I must keep the door open for women's participation in politics at the highest level. That is both humbling and exciting.

I just think that unless you have that cohesiveness in the family unit, the male character tends to become very dominant, repressive and insensitive. So much of this comes also from a lack of education.

Liberia has to take primary responsibility for its own reform agenda. But our resources are limited. We have to attract the private sector to get jobs to our people that will enable us to raise the government revenue, but to do that we have to build infrastructure. It's a very complex problem of development we are facing here.

Women work harder. And women are more honest; they have less reasons to be corrupt.

In Liberia, our salary scales are so low that our judicial system has become corrupt over the years. Now, we need to do some things ourselves.