In an age where community involvement and partnerships with civil society are increasingly being recognized as indispensable, there is clearly a growing potential for cooperative development and renewal worldwide.

My own advice to people who would be in office for two or three terms is that they must accept democratic rotation. Ideally not put themselves up for re-election and allow the system to work.

[Professional accountants ] should be encouraging companies to enhance their green credentials by switching to renewables, and to respect core labor standards and human rights.

We at the U.N. have to take some of the blame, because we have not lowered expectations creating the impression we are here to save people, even when we have very limited resources.

In some ways, the challenges are even more daunting than they were at the peak of the cold war. Not only do we continue to face grave nuclear threats, but those threats are being compounded by new weapons developments, new violence within States and new challenges to the rule of law.

Under international law, the responsibility for protecting civilians in conflict falls on the belligerents. Under military occupation, responsibility for the welfare of the population falls on the occupiers.

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.