I spent my youth and my most formative years in Africa. I left Africa when I was about 20, 21, and when Mo says a great African, I was really moulded by my African experience, although I had the good fortune that by the time I was 24 I had studied and worked on three continents - Africa, the US, and Europe.

You have made people listen. You have made people care, and you have taught us that whether we are poor or prosperous, we have only one world to share. You have taught young people that they do have the power to change the world.

The interesting thing is, everybody focuses on the global warming as an environmental issue, as something outside our daily lives. But actually the impact of global warming is with us today. Communities are suffering. Communities in poor countries are the ones paying the price, they are not the ones who are polluting, and we need to help them adapt.

Most governments only want to deploy a peacekeeping force where there is a peace agreement and there is peace to keep. They are very hesitant about putting their men and women in harm's way. It is extremely difficult to get the troops if you do not have the consent of the country where you are deploying.

For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.

In an era of global abundance, our world has the resources to reduce dramatically the massive divides that persist between rich and poor, if only those resources can be unleashed in the service of all peoples.

From this vision of the role of the United Nations in the next century flow three key priorities for the future: eradicating poverty, preventing conflict and promoting democracy.