Above all else, we need a reaffirmation of political commitment at the highest levels to reducing the dangers that arise both from existing nuclear weapons and from further proliferation.
Kofi Annan

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

Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.
Kofi Annan

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.
Kofi Annan

I urge the Iraqi leadership for sake of its own people... to seize this opportunity and thereby begin to end the isolation and suffering of the Iraqi people.
Kofi Annan

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

If one is going to err, one should err on the side of liberty and freedom.
Kofi Annan

If the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for the world's people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?
Kofi Annan

In the 21st century, I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion.
Kofi Annan

In the rush for justice it is important not to lose sight of principles the country holds dear.
Kofi Annan

In their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda.
Kofi Annan

Iraq has a new opportunity to comply with all these relevant resolutions of the Security Council.
Kofi Annan

It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.
Kofi Annan

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.
Kofi Annan

Many African leaders refuse to send their troops on peace keeping missions abroad because they probably need their armies to intimidate their own populations.
Kofi Annan

More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development.
Kofi Annan

More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.
Kofi Annan

National markets are held together by shared values and confidence in certain minimum standards. But in the new global market, people do not yet have that confidence.
Kofi Annan

Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.
Kofi Annan

The Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone.
Kofi Annan