United Nations:
“Whatever we wish our institutions to achieve, they must first be well managed, their staff alive to new possibilities, their procedures transparent and accountable. Working in the private sector, I have seen the significance of the entrepreneurial spirit and the importance of wise and steady management. We should build performance benchmarks, goal indicators and real timelines into our plans and promises.”

“ For the organization as a whole, accountability must mean ensuring that the United Nations uses the most effective strategy, fosters the most ethical conduct, and delivers the most tangible results. Ultimately, as trustee of our hopes for a peaceful and secure world, the United Nations must be accountable to all of us - to the world’s citizens. Our United Nations should be a global avatar of good governance, sound management and accountability.”

Responsibility to protect:
“It is easy to fear an international community exercising its “responsibility to protect” too often, in too cavalier a fashion, overstepping the legitimate rights of sovereigns. That must not happen. But it should be equally the undoing of our international community if we forewent action in the face of genocide.”

Security and Development:
“With greater economic openness has come great prosperity – and new threats to our common security. Threats from transnational crime, from globalized epidemics, and, perhaps most disturbingly, from the growing economic and social dualism that has come with globalization. Poverty alleviation, along with social and economic inclusion, must now be part of any global security strategy”.

“ The links between economic and military security are clear. Military conflicts can wipe out a generation of economic progress in an afternoon. Communities trapped in the nightmare of poverty can stoke the embers of ethnic conflict and political extremism. Indeed, prosperity must be shared to be stable. Disease, hunger and illiteracy impede participation in the global economy. Extreme poverty blocks the first move towards developing self-reliance and erodes dignity as well as security.”

Millennium Development Goals:
“We must build the local conditions, the local expertise and knowledge, the regional and neighbourly collaboration necessary to spread the benefits of growth and to ensure the stability needed for our poorest citizens, regions and neighbours to prosper. We must all ensure that our neighbours also prosper, as we must all ensure that our global neighbourhood remains peaceful.”

Financing for development:
“Any debt relief without job and income creation schemes is unlikely to lead to sustainable development. Soon, there will be more debts. To be effective, programs to promote self-help scheme must be income generating, must be based on a people-centred approach, and must forge a true partnership among the government, the people, the civic society and the private sector.”

UN and development:
“The United nations can be an incubator of ideas as well as a clearing house of practices and experiences. Based on their stories of success and failure, the United Nations and its member States, together with its agencies, must work closer for tailor-made development initiatives to bring real changes toward people-centred sustainable development.”

“Where prosperity remains a promise only for the few, the many can look in, but may find no entry other than to smash the screen. For peace to endure, it must put down roots in social justice - and social exclusion must give way to collective empowerment. The poor must feel that they are part of the solution, not problem - this is the promise of larger freedom.”

Nuclear Security:
“ This complex system (international regime for nuclear security) needs to be strengthened through coordination, better mechanisms for oversight and verification, and more integrated means of cooperation among nations.”

Terrorism:
“We often find governments willing to denounce acts of terror, willing to stand side by side in condemnation, when they have not been able to agree on a legal definition. In this struggle we should focus on action – not on language…. A firm and nuanced response is more crucial than agreement on any single definition.”

Culture of peace:
“This is the time to recognize diversity, to live with it, and to let diversity enrich and strengthen the world. This is the time to learn to embrace the diversity within every culture, alongside differences in faith and belief. This is the time to understand that the values of peace, of social equality and of the sanctity of life are common to all religions. A culture of peace and a dialogue among all faiths can instill values of tolerance, mutual respect and understanding of diversity and differences. How can we lament the fact that others do not understand us if we do not ourselves make efforts to understand them.”

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