I did not always achieve what I set out to do. Nevertheless, my personal example certainly suggests that hands-on experience can be helpful to future leaders.
Kofi AnnanGender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.
Kofi AnnanThe question is the morning after. What sort of Iraq do we wake up to after the bombing? What happens in the region? What impact could it have? These are questions leaders I have spoken to have posed.
Kofi AnnanThe 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.
Kofi AnnanWe had a rule in the school that when you're punished, you carry out the punishment and then complain, which I felt was absolutely unfair: if I'd done it, what was the point of complaining?
Kofi AnnanLiteracy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development... For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.
Kofi Annan