HIV/AIDS has become much more than a health issue. HIV/AIDS is a development issue, it's a security issue.

A hungry mind is not free, and I felt if we were really going to make a difference and fight poverty we should at least start with the ability to feed ourselves, and the millions of Africans who don't have it.

The right to development is the measure of the respect of all other human rights.That should be our aim: a situation in which all individuals are enabled to maximize their potential, and to contribute to the evolution of society as a whole.

If the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for the world's people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

Let us be good stewards of the Earth we inherited. All of us have to share the Earth's fragile ecosystems and precious resources, and each of us has a role to play in preserving them. If we are to go on living together on this earth, we must all be responsible for it.

The drafters of the [Refugee Convention ] had the Cold War in mind and mainly sought to protect a few thousand dissidents from the Communist bloc. They did not envision the mass displacements of people we are seeing today.