UN is made even more complex by the constant interplay of politics and bureaucracy and can certainly be bewildering for a novice.

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope... Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition.

If you have a problem and you can't find a solution, you meet again tomorrow and you keep talking until you find a solution. You can disagree with behavior or a particular position, but you do not resort to calling an opponent worthless.

...there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.

To look into some aspects of the future, we do not need projections by supercomputers. Much of the next millennium can be seen in how we care for our children today. Tomorrow's world may be influenced by science and technology, but more than anything, it is already taking shape in the bodies and minds of our children.

It may seem sometimes as if a culture of peace does not stand a chance against the culture of war, the culture of violence and the cultures of impunity and intolerance. Peace may indeed be a complex challenge, dependent on action in many fields and even a bit of luck from time to time. It may be a painfully slow process, and fragile and imperfect when it is achieved. But peace is in our hands. We can do it.

Children are our future and if we use them in battle, we are destroying the future. We must reclaim them, every one of them, one at a time.