As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict [over] water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world.

The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the "victim" mode . . . .

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.

Good, healthy democratic societies are built on three pillars: there's peace and stability, economic development, and respect for rule of law and human rights. But often, we take stability - peace in terms of security and economic activity - to mean a country is doing well. We forget the third and important pillar of rule of law and respect for human rights, because no country can long remain prosperous without that third pillar.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

If information and knowledge are central to democracy, they are the conditions for development.

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.