Gender 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.

You have to develop a certain healthy distance to allow you to keep a clear head, to be able to analyse the situation, lead your team, and move forward with them, because there are times if I'm not careful... if you get too involved, it will consume you; it will consume you, and you will not be good to your team; the issues you are dealing with.

If we get agriculture right in Africa, where most of the people now are working in that sector, not only would it help boost development but we will be secure in terms of food and nutrition and then be able to move on to other areas.

The UN was very media-shy, and its relationship with the press was very controlled; although periodically I spoke to the press, the rule was, only the secretary-general speaks to the press; only the secretary-general makes... So you would see many situations where under-secretaries-general would come in and speak. I opened that, and I encouraged all of them to speak in their areas, whether it was peacekeeping or humanitarian efforts.

I think that in the West, many citizens, especially younger citizens, take their freedoms and institutions for granted and focus on their frustrations with their governments' inability to solve pressing problems.

Let us, above all, be clear that, without a convincing program of debt relief to start the new millennium, our objective of halving world poverty by 2015 will be only a pipe dream.

Business, labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital in helping to build a more robust global community.