Women's strength, women's industry, women's wisdom are humankind's greatest untapped resource. The challenge then for U.N. Women is to show our diverse constituencies how this resource can be effectively tapped in ways that benefit us all.

For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected.

In today's interdependent world, a threat to one becomes a menace to all. And no state can defeat these challenges and threats alone.

The current global landscape is quite different from the not-too-distant past. The process of globalization has intensified, and the world is moving towards new forms of governance.

Gender equality will only be reached if we are able to empower women.

As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.' Now, they tell me, 'I want to be president just like you.' All of us can dream as big as we want.

I was a woman, a divorcee, a socialist, an agnostic . . . all possible sins together.