APPENDIX III.

The list of speakers and transcripts of individual speeches as acquired online, their online sources and access date.

FEMALE CELEBRITIES (marked as FC, standing for Female Celebrity) Bianca Jagger (FC1) - a Nicaraguan-born, former actress, Emma Watson (FC2) - a British actress and model, Princess Diana (FC3) - the late Princess of Wales, Angelina Jolie (FC4) - an American actress, filmmaker, Ellen Page (FC5) - a Canadian actress Lady Gaga (FC6) - an American singer Oprah Winfrey (FC7) - an American talk show host, actress, producer, Teri Hatcher (FC8) - an American actress, Annie Lennox (FC9) - a Scottish singer, songwriter, Melinda Gates (FC10) - an American businesswoman.

FC1 Bianca Jagger, “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, and the Culture of Impunity: achieving the missing Millennium Development Goal target”, Longford Lecture, Church House, Westminster, UK, November 21, 2013.

Acquired at http://www.longfordtrust.org/lecture_details.php?id=17 (accessed 3rd July 2015)

“Good evening. Thank you, Jon, for your kind words. It means a lot to have you introduce me. Jon is one of my heroes. For years his courageous and insightful reporting has shone a light on issues of human rights, justice - and on every critical issue we are facing in the world. Jon is a voice of reason in the media. I would like to thank the Longford Trust for inviting me to speak today. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be delivering this lecture. The Longford Trust effects real change in people’s lives – it offers opportunities and hope. Lord Longford was a formidable man, a man of principle. I greatly admire his commitment to penal reform. He believed passionately that every individual is capable of reform, rehabilitation or, as he preferred to put it, redemption. "Once we stop believing that,” he said, “we are giving up on our own humanity". And he was a champion of women: the husband of Elizabeth Longford, who was one of the first women to stand for Parliament in 1935, and the father of the talented high-achieving quartet of daughters, Antonia, Rachel, Judith and Catherine. I have thought long and hard about the issue I will address today: "Ending Violence against Women and Girls and the Culture of Impunity". I don’t want to recite an endless litany of shocking statistics at you, or offer glib solutions. I will outline the extent of the vast problem we face: the prevalence of violence against women and girls all over the world. I will also mention some current measures being implemented to address it. I will discuss the situation here in the UK. Lastly, I will share my vision of the future I want, where gender equality prevails, of a world free from gender based violence, and make some recommendations for how we might achieve this vision. My own background But first I would like to tell you a little about myself and the experiences which drove me to commit my life to speaking up for women's rights. I was born in Managua, Nicaragua. My parents divorced when I was ten years old. My mother found herself single, without a profession, and with three small children to care for. I witnessed my mother being discriminated against because of her gender and her status as a divorced, working woman. Divorce was rare in the Nicaragua of the 1960s. There was a stigma attached to it. During those difficult years she exhibited great courage and strength. She believed in women's emancipation at a time when women were regarded as second-class citizens and were expected to devote themselves exclusively to home-making. My mother was my role model. I admired her independence and determination to achieve her goals. She never gave up. Since then conditions have improved for women in Nicaragua and throughout the world. Women are excelling in many fields. We have almost achieved equal pay in some countries. We have different lives to those of our grandmothers and even our mothers. But gender equality is far from achieved. We still face unconscionable levels of discrimination and violence. The stark reality is that women are still a vulnerable group. The Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation For nearly three decades I have campaigned for human rights, social justice and environmental protection throughout the world. I have been speaking up for women’s rights for most of my adult life. I founded the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation (BJHRF) in 2006 to be a force for change, and a voice for the most vulnerable members of society. The BJHRF is dedicated to defending human rights, achieving social justice, speaking up for future generations and addressing the threat of climate change. Pivotal moment We are at a pivotal time for women’s rights and human development. Nicholas D. Kristof, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist, has written, “In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.” I couldn’t agree more. How are we doing in tackling the "central moral challenge" of the 21st century? We have been talking about women’s rights, and ending violence against women and girls for a long, long time. The English reformer Caroline Norton, calling for reform of laws governing domestic violence against women in 1854, wrote: "I desire to prove, not my suffering or his injustice, but that the present law of England cannot prevent any such suffering, or control any such injustice..." The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the principal global policy- making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women was established in 1946. The first world conference on the status of women was convened by the UN in Mexico City to coincide with the 1975 International Women's Year. In September 1981, the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was ratified. There have been three further conferences: Copenhagen in 1980; Nairobi in 1985; and Beijing in 1995. The Beijing Platform for Action laid out the measures for national and international action for the advancement of women; to enhance the social, economic and political empowerment of women, improve their health and their access to education and promote their reproductive rights. The action plan set targets, committing nations to carry out concrete actions in health, education, decision-making and legal reforms with "the ultimate goal of eliminating all forms of discrimination against women in both public and private life". The conference resolved to address the "deeply entrenched attitudes and practices which perpetuate inequality... in all parts of the world". Today, nearly 20 years later, how many of those targets have been accomplished? Have we rid ourselves of these "deeply entrenched attitudes and practices"? Sadly, I don’t believe we have. I suppose you could argue that we have achieved gender equality on paper in the developed world. We can vote, we can own property, we can own and run businesses, we can be elected to parliament. What more do we want? But there is a difference between non-discrimination and achieving gender equality. In human rights terminology, non-discrimination is defined as "the absence of a discriminatory legal framework, and that policies are not discriminatory in effect". Achieving gender equality, however, is another matter. What The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) calls "substantive equality" goes much further. It is overcoming entrenched gender bias in society. "Substantive equality is concerned with the effects of laws, policies and practices to ensure that they do not maintain or reinforce existing disadvantages." The missing MDG target When the international community convened in 2000 to establish the Millennium Development Goals, they left out one critical target. They failed to address the global pandemic of violence against women and girls. UNIFEM refers to the elimination of violence against women and girls as the "missing MDG target". The BJHRF has launched a global campaign calling on world leaders to achieve that "missing MDG target": ending violence against women and girls and the culture of impunity; to address the systemic problems of discrimination; and to achieve gender equality. I hope that you will support the BJHRF’s efforts. Violence against women is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world. It happens in every country, at every level of society. The 2005 World Health Organisaton (WHO) report, Addressing Violence against Women and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals, states: "Until recently, most governments have considered violence against women to be a relatively minor social problem. Today... violence against women is recognized as a global concern. One of the most pervasive violations of human rights in all societies, it exists on a continuum from violence perpetrated by an intimate partner to violence as a weapon of war. Violence against women is a major threat to social and economic development". Today, eight years after that WHO report, "violence against women continues to undermine efforts to reach the MDG targets"’ according to the UN. The failure of governments to protect the rights of women continues to hinder the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women all over the world. The WHO also states that eradicating violence against women is particularly critical to achieving MDG number seven - namely to ensure environmental sustainability. "Open[ing] useful avenues for designing interventions which, in addition to preserving the environment, can empower and protect women in both rural and urban settings". The consensus is clear. Our capacity to achieve the eight MDG targets by 2015 is inextricably linked to our ability to tackle the missing target. Our failure to address it will prevent us from achieving the other MDGs. The 57th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in March 2013 “affirm[ed] that violence against women and girls is rooted in historical and structural inequality in power relations between women and men, and persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of the enjoyment of human rights.” These "pervasive" human rights violations are grave injustices and they hold us back as a society. Governments are preparing a new framework to follow the MDG targets in 2015, and they intend to include the missing MDG in this new framework. But can we afford to wait until 2015? No. I don’t believe we can, we must act now. I will now briefly outline the situation we face. Each one of these statistics is shocking, together they are horrific. Global violence against women The United Nations Development Fund for Women estimates that at least one in every three women in the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused. In some countries the rate is as high as 70 per cent. Globally, violence is a greater threat to women aged aged 15- 44 than cancer, traffic accidents, malaria and war combined. Every 6 hours, a woman is killed by her partner in South Africa. 574 women and girls were murdered in Guatemala during 2012. Conviction rates for these murders are between less than 1 per cent and 4 per cent. Rife with drug and gang crime, Ciudad Juarez in Mexico has been called the murder capital of the world. Between 1993 and 2012, 1,234 women were reported murdered (no-one knows how many murders have gone unreported). According to the New York Times, the women’s bodies are often dumped in mass graves outside the city, mutilated, showing signs of torture and sadistic sexual assault. In some countries the murder of women is enshrined in law. In Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, among others, women can still be punished for the "crimes" of adultery, or sex outside marriage by beheading, stoning and hanging under Sharia law. Who can forget the shocking and sickening video which emerged in 2012, showing a woman in an Afghan village being shot nine times in the back with an AK47 as dozens of men look on cheering? A man reads verses from the Koran condemning adultery, saying: "We cannot forgive her. God tells us to finish her.” The gunman continues to fire shots into her body after she falls to the ground. In Jamama, Somalia a young woman, accused of "having out-of-marriage sex", was stoned to death in a football stadium in 2012. In 2008 Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, a rape victim, was stoned in Somalia to death in front of a thousand spectators for "adultery". She was 13 years old. Amnesty International has said that the killing of Aisha Duhulow, "demonstrates the cruelty and the inherent discrimination against women of this punishment" Across India 8,391 dowry death cases were reported in 2010 - that means a bride was burned every 90 minutes, according to statistics recently released by the National Crime Records Bureau in India. These numbers indicate a culture of impunity, of tolerance of violence against women all across the world - sometimes sanctioned by the state. It is abhorrent that in the 21st century such killings are allowed to continue. National judicial systems often lack adequate financial and human resources to handle sexual assault and violence against women. And there is often a lack of will to do so. "Women rarely have the same resources, political rights, authority or control over their environment and needs that men do," the Independent Experts Assessment for UNIFEM writes, in Women, War and Peace. They do not have access to assistance, protection and support.

Violence feeds on the widespread, insidious cultural perception that women are inferior. As the recent report by the House of Commons International Development Committee states: "priority must be accorded to interventions that focus on changing social norms that condone violence against women and girls..." My friend Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard, showed the devastating consequences of the neglect women face all over the world in his revolutionary paper, "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing". He writes: "The higher rates of disease from which women suffer, and ultimately to the relative neglect of females, especially in health care and medical attention... These numbers tell us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess mortality of women". Foeticide, India An estimated 50 million women are "missing' from the Indian population having been lost through infanticide, abortion, or child neglect. Fifty million. In certain regions of India the practice of sex selective aborting or killing girl babies in favour of boys is a shockingly familiar one. The deadly preference for male offspring is already having an effect on the population: the boy/girl ratio has changed across the country. In 1991, the census figure was 947 girls to 1000 boys. Ten years later it had fallen to 927 girls for 1000 boys. Today it stands at 914 girls to every 1,000 boys, and it’s still sinking. Tragically this attitude is not unique to India. More and more girls and women are disappearing every year - in India, Pakistan, China, many countries in Africa and other parts of the world - because they are considered less valuable, less culturally and economically useful than men. Women acquiesce, or are forced to be complicit in these femicides across the world. Rape and Sexual Assault Rape and sexual assault are endemic in our societies. Globally, 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to school each year. Many of you may have heard of the tragic case of Nirbhaya in India last December. A 23-year-old student returning home from the cinema one evening, she was violently and repeatedly gang raped on a bus, sustaining horrific internal injuries. Afterwards she was thrown, naked and unconscious, from the moving vehicle. The student was nicknamed Nirbhaya, meaning "Fearless", in the Indian press for her determination to live and see her attackers prosecuted. Nirbhaya died of her injuries on December 29th 2012. Something changed in me the day I learned about Nirbhaya. I felt sick and revolted when I read of her suffering. It reaffirmed my determination to speak out against violence against women. I was encouraged by the reaction to Nirbhaya’s case in India. It galvanised public opinion. Women and men stood up, demanding legislation to protect women. The Indian Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law, headed by Justice JS Verma, produced a remarkable report, containing comprehensive analysis and recommendations not only for improving response and procedures for sexual assault in India, but overall strategies to improve the status of women. The report reveals corruption in the police and the government, an institutionalised apathy towards violence and deeply ingrained misogyny. It states unequivocally that, "the police are involved in trafficking of children", and that, "authentic figures of missing children in India are not available for obvious reasons of the complicity of law enforcement agencies. Children have been driven into forced labour, sex abuse, sexual exploitation as well as made victims of illegal organ trade." The report condemns the demeaning and inhumane treatment rape victims sometimes receive in India at the hands of the police and doctors. This report is a call to action. It proposes transformative amendments to the law to better protect women and girls, and to promote gender equality. It calls for the criminalisation of marital rape, and for the government to bring sexual crime by members of the armed forces under the jurisdiction of criminal law. It makes recommendations to address the deeply entrenched gender bias in the Indian police force. It overhauls medical and forensic procedure for victims of sexual assault and suggests provision for trafficked children and vulnerable women. If the recommendations in this ground-breaking report were implemented, they could improve the lives of millions of women and girls. They could lay the foundations for a systemic change in Indian society and institutions. I can think of many other countries which could benefit from the recommendations of the Indian Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law. Unfortunately, the Indian government has so far failed to adopt many of these recommendations. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government must take immediate action. Closer to home It’s common misconception that sexual violence on this scale happens only in the developing world. I’m afraid to say that sexual violence against women is a global crisis and the developed world is not exempt. Last year in the UK around 60,000 women were raped, over 400,000 women were sexually assaulted, 1.2 million women suffered domestic abuse, according to the Home Office. But shockingly, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, there were only 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence in England and Wales. Why are such a small proportion of rape and sexual assault cases prosecuted? There is a culture of silence and shame surrounding sexual assault – only 1 in 10 is reported in the UK. The victim is often the only witness, and almost always has to go to court. Many women are afraid to speak out in cases of rape and domestic abuse. Most rape victims cannot face the process of a trial. Accountability on the part of states and societies for crimes against women means more than just having legal mechanisms available to punish perpetrators. We have to enforce them. Impunity weakens the foundation of societies.

Rape as a Weapon of War We live in a world where rape has long been used a weapon of war. And violence against women in conflict has reached epidemic proportions. In 1993, I went to the former Yugoslavia to document the mass rape of Bosnian women by Serbian forces as part of their campaign of ethnic cleansing. Nothing in my experience as a human rights campaigner had prepared me for the horror and suffering I witnessed, and the testimonies I heard. UNIFEM estimates that during the Bosnian war up to 50,000 women were systematically raped. To date there have only been 30 convictions for those rapes. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide it is estimated between 250,000-500,000 women were raped. Rape is used as a weapon of war to humiliate, to punish, to demean: to break communities and families apart. Women have become the biggest victims of war. The UNIFEM Independent Experts Assessment writes in Women, War and Peace, "the extreme violence that women suffer during conflict does not arise solely out of the condition of war; it is directly related to the violence that exists during women’s lives during peacetime".

Global sexual assault Under Sharia law, rape victims in Afghanistan have also been jailed for adultery. In one case in 2011, a woman was forced to marry her rapist. Every year 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, the majority for sexual exploitation, modern-day slavery and prostitution. 79 per cent of them are women and girls. If trafficking within countries is included in the total world figures, estimates indicate that 2 to 4 million people are trafficked each year. Conviction for rape can require either a confession or the testimony of four adult male witnesses.

Domestic violence Being assaulted by a partner is the most common kind of violence experienced by women. Nearly 40 per cent of women killed worldwide are slain by an intimate partner, according to the UN. Those who perpetrate violence against women should be prosecuted with the full weight of the law.

But how much weight does the law carry? Not much, in many parts of the world. Domestic violence is acceptable, even legal in some countries. More than 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime, according to the UN. The highest court in the United Arab Emirates ruled in 2010 that under Sharia law a man is permitted to beat his wife and children, as long as he leaves no marks.

A judge in Saudi Arabia stated in 2009 that a man has the right to hit a wife who spends money wastefully. Even in countries where violence against women is illegal, spousal abuse, rape and sexual violence are often ingrained in the culture. In Turkey, where domestic violence is illegal but widespread, a hospital survey showed that 69 per cent of the female and 85 per cent of the male medical staff agreed that wife beating was justified. Accepted justifications included women lying to, or riticising the male partner, and not taking sufficient care of children. The numbers aren’t encouraging. The more I learn about the issue the more appalled and disturbed I am by the global failure to address the problem of violence against women and girls. It is systemic and institutionalised. When I spoke on violence against women at the Google Zetigest conference in London earlier this year, the organisers tried to censor my speech. They wanted me to soft pedal the statistics. They said the audience was mainly men, and they weren’t ready for the shocking facts. But I believe that men are ready to look the facts in the face.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) 100 to 140 million girls all over the world, predominantly in Africa, have been subjected to female genital mutilation. A 2007 analysis estimates more than 66,000 women in the UK have undergone FGM, with some 24,000 girls at risk. Yet, in the UK, there has been not a single conviction for FGM in the 30 years since it was made illegal. I welcome the upcoming Home Affairs Select Committee enquiry into the lack of convictions for FGM in the United Kingdom. It is urgent and long overdue. We can be sure that all of these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. Much violence against women goes unreported.

Discrimination and Gender Bias What is the cause of this global pandemic of violence against women and girls? It iis caused by deeply entrenched societal norms. In some countries discrimination against women is enshrined in law. And it persists in other, supposedly egalitarian nations - veiled and underhand, unspoken. Education is critical to emancipating women and girls from poverty, in achieving gender equality, and towards the creation of a free and equal world. It is the golden key to unlocking potential, and creating equal opportunity. All countries must achieve gender parity in education.

Equal Pay The Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts came into force in the UK in 1975. Today women in this country are paid on average 15 per cent less than their male counterparts. The hourly rate of pay for men is £26.54 and for women £18.32, with the disparity even wider in part-time jobs. 2013 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the passing into law of the Equal Pay Act by John F Kennedy in the USA. We have yet to achieve economic justice for women who are still paid less than men in the US, in the UK, and everywhere else in the world. Discrimination is not merely a moral evil. it is explicitly against the law. Institutions and business – employers everywhere, those who are in the greatest positions of responsibility - have a duty to observe the law, to ensure equal pay for women. I urge business leaders to make the workplace fair. Gender equality and equal pay are enshrined in national and international law, but they are not the everyday reality for women all over the world. It’s time to eliminate discrimination and ensure women employees are fairly treated; and lastly, but by no means least - to employ more women.

Women in Position of Power Worldwide, education is fraught with gender bias. 70 million girls each year are denied the right to the most basic education. 64 per cent of the 774 million illiterate adults worldwide are women. No one knows this better than Malala Yousefzai, who risked her life speaking out for women’s education in Pakistan. Her commitment and vision have earned her the Sakharov Prize at the age of 16. I can think of no one more deserving. There are too few women in positions of power today. Of the 190 heads of state in the world, 17 are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 21 per cent are women. In the UK there are 147 female MPs – and 503 male MPs. In the corporate sector only 16 per cent of those at boardroom level are women. We are deluding ourselves if we think we have eradicated discrimination from the so-called developed world.

The Media I fear that under the surface of our Western democratic, egalitarian societies, embedded deep in our cultures, still lurks an institutionalised belief that women are inferior. In the words of the Beijing Platform, which I mentioned earlier, there lurk "deeply entrenched attitudes and practices which perpetuate inequality and discrimination against women, in public and private life, in all parts of the world". And too often, those attitudes and practises are perpetuated by the media. I was astonished recently when many UK newspapers including the Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail carried headlines stating that Andy Murray was the first British winner of the Wimbledon Tennis Championship in 77 years. Have they forgotten that there were four other British singles champions in the past 77 years? Dorothy Round Little won the women's singles in 1937; Angela Mortimer won in 1961; Ann Haydon-Jones in 1969; and Virginia Wade in 1977. Apparently, as women, our victories don’t count. Is there a wish to diminish us – to ignore our achievements, to belittle us?

Vision I am about to become a great grandmother. This begs the question – what do I want the world to look like for my granddaughters and great grandchild? What can we do in the next decades to ensure that, when my great grandchild is grown, gender violence a thing of the past? I have a vision for the future I want. In this future we have achieved gender equality, ended violence against women and girls and the culture of impunity. We have achieved the missing MDG target. We live in a democracy where justice prevails -an inclusive society, based on the principles of equality, freedom and security, where women are a political force in every country, at the negotiating tables, and their voices count in peace processes, judicial and civil infrastructure. They have equal opportunity in all sectors and at every level of society and are paid the same as men. In my vision, we have reviewed our civil and labour laws and introduced land reforms to eliminate discrimination against women. Empowering women will make a material difference to our lives. It will reduce poverty and hunger - for instance women farmers make up about half of the agricultural workforce in developing countries, and this number is increasing. But they suffer discrimination and lack access to resources. If we give these women farmers access to seeds, equipment and resources, if we empower them, we could end hunger for 150 million people worldwide, according to UN Women. I am not only calling on women to achieve this vision. We need men and women to work together to create a world where we walk hand in hand.

How to achieve it How do we get there? There are minimum standards we need to meet in order to achieve my vision. We must: Establish the legal mechanisms that will ensure the protection of women from violence, sexual violence and promote gender equality around the world. We must develop the mechanisms to enforce the law, to bring the culprits to justice, and end the culture of impunity; Eliminate all forms of discrimination against women in political, economic, public and private life; Empower more women. Increase women’s leadership and participation in every sector of society. Recognise them in the corridors of power – get them to the negotiating table and make sure their voices are heard; Ensure equal rights of women to own and inherit property, sign a contract, register a business and open a bank account; Eliminate discrimination from the media and institutions: governmental, academic, financial, legal... from all sectors and promote gender equality at all levels; Enforce stringent equal opportunities and equal pay legislation; Ensure gender parity in education; Increase women’s access to economic empowerment and opportunities; Increase funding and budgets for initiatives which prevent violence; Ridding our social and legal institutions of bias will be a painfully slow process, but we must do it. We’re not doing enough, and we’re not doing it fast enough. It means ensuring funding and access for women to media and communications technology, giving them a forum for their points of view. It means revolutionising the way women are presented in all forms of media. There is currently an ingrained gender bias towards women, a tendency to reduce us to stereotypes, sexualise us, infantilise us, dehumanise us and condemn us. We have long accepted it but I don’t think we should. I have just returned from Warsaw, Poland, where I spoke on two panels at COP19, the UN climate conference. One was "Vision 50/50: Women for Action on Climate Change", moderated by Cristiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, with Helen Clark, UNDP administrator and former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Tarja Halonen, Former President of Finland, and Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director, UN Women. Formidable, powerful, accomplished women, leaders in their fields. They have expertise, wisdom, knowledge and compassion: qualities we need in our leaders. The UN Women position paper, "A transformative, Stand-alone Goal on Achieving Gender Equality, Women’s Rights and Women’s Empowerment", finds that the shortage of women in power "has its roots in unequal power relations in the family and community". Which brings me to my point: opinions, attitudes and prejudice are learned at home. It is family that first influences a child’s view of the world. We women cannot blame the patriarchy for all the wrongs of the world. We also raise our sons and daughters. We influence their perceptions of the roles that men and women should play. We must teach our children respect for human rights, respect for women’s rights, the meaning of gender equality. We have the opportunity and the power to counter centuries of age-old misogyny and prejudice. When I look back at my mother, I realise what a pivotal role she played in shaping who I am today.

Conclusion This is a global problem, but we can make a difference. Together, we have great collective power. I call on women across the world to embark upon a non-violent revolution: to rid our world of the scourge of gender based violence. I hope that all men of conscience will join us. Together we can end violence against women and girls and the culture of impunity. Together we can tackle deeply ingrained pervasive institutional discrimination. It will not be easy. We will need each and every one of you. What is clear is that we can’t ignore the problems of violence against women and girls any longer. We owe it to women all over the world who are suffering violence, persecution and injustice to stand up for their rights. It is a crime against each and every one of us. It is not only we, but our daughters and granddaughters who will suffer. By doing nothing, we jeopardize their future. Let's make our voices heard. Twitter is a great tool for social justice and it’s an invaluable tool in my human rights and environmental campaigning. If you witness injustice, you can say something. Tweet about it. I am on Twitter, @BiancaJagger. I would like to invite you to follow me. I would like to leave you with Abigail Adams advice to her husband, US President John Adams, in 1776: "...remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. Thank you”

FC2 Emma Watson, “Gender equality is your issue too”, Speech at a special event for the HeForShe Campaign, the United Nations Headquarters, New York, USA September 20, 2014.

Acquired at http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality- is-your-issue-too (accessed 3rd July 2015)

“Today we are launching a campaign called “HeForShe.” I am reaching out to you because I need your help. We want to end gender inequality—and to do that we need everyone to be involved. This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. And we don’t just want to talk about it, but make sure it is tangible. I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop. For the record, feminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.” I started questioning gender-based assumptions when at eight I was confused at being called “bossy,” because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents—but the boys were not. When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press. When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want to appear “muscly.” When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings. I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive. Why is the word such an uncomfortable one? I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights. No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality. These rights I consider to be human rights but I am one of the lucky ones. My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn’t assume I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influencers were the gender equality ambassadors that made me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing the world today. And we need more of those. And if you still hate the word—it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition behind it. Because not all women have been afforded the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been. In 1995, Hilary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly many of the things she wanted to change are still a reality today. But what stood out for me the most was that only 30 per cent of her audience were male. How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation? Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too. Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s. I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality either. We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence. If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled. Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals. If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are— we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom. I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves. You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN. It’s a good question and trust me, I have been asking myself the same thing. I don’t know if I am qualified to be here. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better. And having seen what I’ve seen—and given the chance—I feel it is my duty to say something. English Statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men and women to do nothing.” In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly—if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope those words might be helpful. Because the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won’t be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education. If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier. And for this I applaud you. We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the "he" for "she". And to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when? Thank you.”

FC3 Diana, Princess of Wales, “Women and Children with Aids”, the International Conference on HIV/AIDS in children & mothers, Edinburgh, UK, September 8, 1993.

Acquired at http://www.settelen.com/diana_women_and_children_with_aids.htm (accessed 5th July 2015)

“Some sections of the media would have us believe that the dark shadow of AIDS is fading away. The predicted explosion has failed to happen and retreated back to those who've so often been condemned or ignored.

Yet common sense and the testimonies of healthcare workers, worldwide, tell us a very different story. The truth is, that most people infected by HIV are heterosexual and the disease is spreading, throughout the world, at a staggering rate. By the year two thousand - only seven years from now - even the most conservative estimates predict there will be more than thirty million people, worldwide, with HIV - equivalent to more than half the population of the United Kingdom! Mothers and children are being 'infected' or 'affected' by the Aids virus in greater and greater numbers, every single day. A mother with HIV or Aids doesn't give up the responsibility of caring for her children easily. Often she is the sole parent, the wage earner, the provider of food, the organiser of daily life, the nurse to other sick members of the family, including her own children. Relentless demands continue to be placed on her, at a time when her own health and strength are falling away. As well as the physical drain on her energy, a mother with HIV carries the grief and guilt that she probably won't see her healthy children through to independence. If she has passed on HIV to one of her children, she will have to witness their illness while trying to make something of their short life. Worrying as to what will happen to them if she dies first. Trying to plan for her surviving children's futures won't be an easy task! At what stage should she give up her role as a parent? Who can she rely on to take care of them? Where can she find the right kind of support to decide what is best for them? How can she be sure that her family history and traditions won't be lost? Yet the biggest fear of the mothers I've met with HIV or AIDS is not their disease. They've learnt to live with their disease, especially, as for much of the time they are feeling well! No, what terrifies them most, is other people! For despite information about Aids being available now for nearly ten years, these women still face harassment, job loss, isolation, even physical aggression, if their family secret gets out. How then is it possible for them to decide the moment to explain to their children what is happening in their lives? Do they tell the neighbours? Do they tell their children's school? Is there anyone they can truly trust or is it safer and wiser to struggle on alone? Yet these mothers don't ask for sympathy. Their need is for understanding. To be allowed to live a full and active life. To be given the support to love and care for their children, for as long as they can, without carrying the added burden of our ignorance and fear. And what of the children who live with HIV every day? Not because they're necessarily ill themselves, but because their family life includes a mother, father, brother or sister who has the virus. How will we help them come to terms with the loss of the people they love? How will we help them to grieve? How will we help them to feel secure about their future? These children need to feel the same things as other children. To play, to laugh and cry, to make friends, to enjoy the ordinary experiences of childhood. To feel loved and nurtured and included by the world they live in, without the stigma that AIDS continues to attract. By listening to their needs, really listening, perhaps we can find the best way of helping these children to face their future with greater confidence and hope.

The effect HIV and AIDS has on mothers and children, when the disease is allowed to spread unchecked, was brought home to me on my recent visit to Zimbabwe. I saw for myself the very personal tragedies whole families were suffering. The damage it was doing to their communities, to the country as a whole, both socially and economically, was devastating. Yet the support these families were given by those around them was a lesson for us all. They were being treated with compassion and respect, by their friends and neighbours, for what they were having to go through. And were still accepted as an important part of their community, not as outcasts to be ignored. Here in the United Kingdom the number of women and children known to be infected or affected by HIV or AIDS is still comparatively small. But if we continue to believe that AIDS is someone else's problem, we too, could so easily be facing the same devastating destruction of our nation's way of life that is already happening in other parts of the world. In my daily life I've seen for myself the tremendous work being done by the many charities and government organisations who are searching for new ways of tackling the dilemma of AIDS. The importance of this conference, here in Edinburgh, cannot be underestimated. It brings together those people who represent milestones of achievement around the world in dealing with the complexities of HIV and AIDS in mothers and children. And also, those who've pushed back the boundaries of our understanding of how the infection is transmitted and how it can be treated. Your exchange of ideas and experiences will, I am sure, make a difference to the future well- being of us all. I feel certain, we as a nation still need to develop a deeper understanding of what AIDS really is. To possibly, be just a little more aware and just a little less embarrassed about how the virus is transmitted, even when we don't really see ourselves at risk. In that way, perhaps, we may play a small part in helping to protect a person we love from becoming infected with HIV. For those mothers and children already living under the dark shadow of AIDS we need to help them back into the light. To reassure them. To respect and support their needs. And maybe, we will learn from them, how to live our own life more fully, for however long it is.”

FC4 Angelina Jolie Pitt, “Remarks by Angelina Jolie Pitt”, UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt, United Nations Security Council (7433rd Meeting), Open Briefing on the Humanitarian Situation in Syria, New York, USA, April 24, 2015.

These remarks were provided by UNHCR Acquired at http://www.unrefugees.org/2015/04/angelina-jolies-speech-to-the-un-security- council/ (accessed 5th July 2015)

“Mr President, Foreign Ministers, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: it is an honor to brief the Council. I thank His Excellency the Foreign Minister of Jordan, the High Commissioner for Refugees, and my colleagues from OCHA, and the World Food Programme. Since the Syria conflict began in 2011, I have made eleven visits to Syrian refugees in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Malta. I wish that some of the Syrians I have met could be here today. I think of the mother I met recently in a camp in Iraq. She could tell you what it is like to try to live after your young daughter was ripped from your family by armed men, and taken as a sex slave. I think of Hala, one of six orphaned children living in a tent in Lebanon. She could tell you what it is like to share the responsibility for feeding your family at the age of 11, because your mother died in an air strike and your father is missing. I think of Dr Ayman, a Doctor from Aleppo, who watched his wife and three year-old daughter drown in the Mediterranean when a smugglers’ boat collapsed packed with hundreds of people. He could tell you what it is like to try to keep your loved ones safe in a warzone, only to lose them in a desperate bid for safety after all other options have failed. Any one of the Syrians I have met would speak more eloquently about the conflict than I ever could. Nearly four million Syrian refugees are victims of a conflict they have no part in. Yet they are stigmatized, unwanted, and regarded as a burden. So I am here for them, because this is their United Nations. Here, all countries and all people are equal – from the smallest and most broken member states to the free and powerful. The purpose of the UN is to prevent and end conflict: To bring countries together, to find diplomatic solutions and to save lives. We are failing to do this in Syria. Responsibility for the conflict lies with the warring parties inside Syria. But the crisis is made worse by division and indecision within the international community – preventing the Security Council from fulfilling its responsibilities. In 2011, the Syrian refugees I met were full of hope. They said “please, tell people what is happening to us”, trusting that the truth alone would guarantee international action. When I returned, hope was turning into anger: the anger of the man who held his baby up to me, asking “is this a terrorist? Is my son a terrorist?” On my last visit in February, anger had subsided into resignation, misery and the bitter question “why are we, the Syrian people, not worth saving?” To be a Syrian caught up in this conflict is to be cut off from every law and principle designed to protect innocent life: International humanitarian law prohibits torture, starvation, the targeting of schools and hospitals – but these crimes are happening every day in Syria. The Security Council has powers to address these threats to international peace and security – but those powers lie unused. The UN has adopted the Responsibility to Protect concept, saying that when a State cannot protect its people the international community will not stand by – but we are standing by, in Syria. The problem is not lack of information – we know in excruciating detail what is happening in Yarmouk, in Aleppo and in Homs. The problem is lack of political will. We cannot look at Syria, and the evil that has arisen from the ashes of indecision, and think this is not the lowest point in the world’s inability to protect and defend the innocent. And I say this as someone who is proud to have been part of the UN system for 13 years. I don’t think enough people realize just how many people are fed, sheltered, protected and educated by the United Nations every day of the year. But all of this good is undermined by the message being sent in Syria: that laws can be flouted – chemical weapons can be used, hospitals can be bombed, aid can be withheld and civilians starved – with impunity. So on behalf of Syrian refugees, I make three pleas to the international community: The first is an appeal for unity. It is time for the Security Council to work as one to end the conflict, and reach a settlement that also brings justice and accountability for the Syrian people. It is very encouraging to see ministerial representation from Jordan, Spain and Malaysia here today. But I think we would all like to see the Foreign Ministers of all the Security Council Members here, working on a political solution for Syria as a matter of urgency. In the last few months we have seen intensive diplomacy at work elsewhere in the region: so now let us see what is possible for the people of Syria. And while these debates are important, I also urge the Security Council to visit Syrian refugees, to see first hand their suffering and the impact it is having on the region. Those refugees cannot come to this Council, so please, will you go to them. Second, I echo what has been said about supporting Syria’s neighbors, who are making an extraordinary contribution. It is sickening to see thousands of refugees drowning on the doorstep of the world’s wealthiest continent. No one risks the lives of their children in this way except out of utter desperation. If we cannot end the conflict, we have an inescapable moral duty to help refugees and provide legal avenues to safety. And third, the barbarism of those inflicting systematic sexual violence demands a much greater response from the international community. We need to send a signal that we are serious about accountability for these crimes, for that is the only hope of establishing any deterrence. And I call on Member States to begin preparations now so that Syrian women are fully represented in future peace negotiations, in accordance with multiple resolutions of the Security Council. And if I may make a wider, final point to conclude my remarks. The crisis in Syria illustrates that our inability to find diplomatic solutions causes mass displacement, and traps millions of people in exile, statelessness, and displacement. 52 million people are forcibly displaced today – a sea of excluded humanity. And while our priority must be ending the Syrian conflict, we must also broaden out the discussion to this much wider problem. Our times will be defined not by the crises themselves, but by the way we pull together as an international community to address them. Thank you.”

FC5 Ellen Page, Speech at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation -Time to Thrive Conference, Las Vegas, USA, February 15, 2014.

Acquired at http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/15/ellen-page-comes-out-as-gay- in-a-beautiful-speech-at-a-human-rights-campaign-foundation-conference.html (accessed 3rd July 2015)

“Thank you, Chad, for those kind words, and for the even kinder work that you and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation do every day on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered young people here and across America.

It is such an honor to be here at the inaugural Time To THRIVE Conference. But it’s a little weird, too. Here I am in this room because of an organization whose work I deeply, deeply admire, and I’m surrounded by people who make it their life’s work to make other people’s lives better—profoundly better. Some of you teach young people. Some of you help young people to heal and find their voice. Some of you listen. Some of you take action. Some of you are young people yourselves, in which case it’s even weirder for a young person like me to be speaking to you. It’s weird because here I am, an actress, representing at least in some sense an industry that places crushing standards on all of us—and not just young people, everyone. Standards of beauty, of a good life, of success; standards that I hate to admit have affected me. You have ideas planted in your head—thoughts you never had before—that tell you how you have to act, how you have to dress, and who you have to be. And I’ve been trying to push back to be authentic and follow my heart, but it can be hard. But that’s why I’m here, in this room. All of you, all of us, can do so much more together than any one person can do alone. And I hope that that thought bolsters you as much as it does me. I hope that the workshops you go to over the next few days give you strength, because I can only imagine that there are days when you’ve worked longer hours than your boss realizes or cares about just to help a kid who you know can make it. Days where you feel completely alone, undermined, or hopeless. And I know that there are people in this room who go to school every day and get treated like shit for no reason. Or you go home and you feel like you can’t tell your parents the whole truth about yourself. And beyond putting yourself in one box or another, you worry about the future, about college, or work, or even your physical safety. And trying to create that mental picture of your life, of what on earth is going to happen to you, can crush you a little bit every day. And it is toxic, and painful, and deeply unfair. And sometimes it’s the little, insignificant stuff that can tear you down. Now, I try not to read gossip as a rule. But the other day, a website ran an article with a picture of me wearing sweatpants on the way to the gym. And the writer asked, “Why does this petite beauty insist on dressing like a massive man?” Because I like to be comfortable. There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we’re all supposed to act, dress, and speak, and they serve no one. Anyone who defies these so-called “norms” becomes worthy of comment and scrutiny, and the LGBT community knows this all too well. Yet there is courage all around us. The football hero Michael Sam; the actress Laverne Cox; the musicians Tegan and Sara Quinn; the family that supports their daughter or son who has come out. And there is courage in this room. All of you.

And I’m inspired to be in this room because every single one of you is here for the same reason: you’re here because you’ve adopted, as a core motivation, the simple fact that this world would e a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another. If we took just five minutes to recognize each other’s beauty instead of attacking each other for our differences—that’s not hard, it’s really an easier and better way to live. And ultimately, it saves lives. Then again, it can be the hardest thing—because loving other people starts with loving ourselves and accepting ourselves. And I know many of you have struggled with this, and I dry upon your strength and your support in ways that you will never know. And I am here today because I am gay. And because maybe I can make a difference to help others have an easier and more hopeful time. Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility. I also do it selfishly, because I’m tired of hiding. And I’m tired of lying by omission. I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered, and my relationships suffered. And I’m standing here today, with all of you, on the other side of that pain. And I am young, yes. But what I have learned is that love—the beauty of it, the joy of it, and yes, even the pain of it—is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being. And we deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame, and without compromise. There are too many kids out there suffering from bullying, rejection, or simply being mistreated because of who they are. Too many dropouts. Too much abuse. Too many homeless. Too many suicides. You can change that, and you are changing it. But you never needed me to tell you that, and that’s why this was a little bit weird. The only thing that I can really say is what I have been building up to for the past five minutes: thank you. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for giving me hope. And please keep changing the world for people like me. Happy Valentine’s Day, I love you all.”

FCF6 Lady Gaga, “The Prime Rib of America (On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell)”, SLDN rally: “For the 14,000”, Portland, Maine, USA, September 20, 2010.

Acquired at https://queerrhetoric.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/the-prime-rib-of-america/

(accessed 5th July 2015)

“Good afternoon. Can you all hear me? I wrote this speech, this address, myself, I’ve spent 48 hours trying to find the perfect thing to say. My address to you today is called “The Prime Rib of America.” I do, solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I will bear true faith and allegiance to do the same, and I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the uniform code of military justice, so help me God.

Unless, there’s a gay soldier in my unit, sir. That is the oath taken every day by service members of the Armed Forces when they enlist to serve their country. Equality is the prime rib of America, but because I’m gay, I don’t get to enjoy the greatest cut of meat my country has to offer. There are amazing heroes here today, whose stories are more powerful that any story I could tell, any fight I’ve ever fought, and any song that I could tell. I’m here because they inspire me. I’m here because I believe in them. I’m here because “don’t ask, don’t tell” is wrong. … It’s unjust, and fundamentally, it is against all that we stand for as Americans.

The Pentagon and senators such as John McCain have cited that the military is a unique institution, they have cited that homosexuals serving openly cause disruption to unit cohesion and morale. So what this means is, that they’re saying that straight soldiers feel uncomfortable around gay soldiers, and sometimes it causes tension, hostility and possible performance inadequacies for straight soldiers who are homophobic. And even though some studies have been done to show an overwhelming and remarkable lack of disruption to units with gay soldiers, I will, for a moment, entertain this debate. As I am less concerned with refuting the fact that, in the workplace, in any workplace, there are tensions, there is even more of a possibility to have tension when you’re fighting for your life. But I’m more concerned that John McCain and other Republican senators are using homophobia as a defense in their argument. As the nexus of this law, openly gay soldiers affect unit cohesion, like it’s OK to discriminate or discharge gay soldiers because we are homophobic, we are uncomfortable, and we do not agree with homosexuality, and I can’t focus on the field of duty when I am fighting. “We have a problem with you.” Wasn’t that the defense of Matthew Shepard’s murderers? When they left him to die on a fence in Laramie, they told the judge, ‘Oh, Matthew’s gay, and it made us uncomfortable, so we killed him.’ ‘Oh, he’s gay, it makes me uncomfortable, send him home.’ As a side note, both Matthew Shepard’s killers have life sentences in prison, and laws have since been passed that homophobia cannot be used as defense anymore in hate crimes in our judicial system.

Doesn’t it seem to be that “don’t ask, don’t tell” is backwards? Doesn’t it seem to be that, based on the Constitution of the United States, that we’re penalizing the wrong soldier? Doesn’t it seem to you that we should send home the prejudiced, the straight soldier who hates the gay soldier, the straight soldier whose performance in the military is affected because he is homophobic, the straight soldier who has prejudice in his heart, in the space where the military asks him to hold our core American values, he instead holds and harbors hate, and he gets to stay and fight for our country? He gets the honor, but we gay soldiers, who harbor no hatred, no prejudice, no phobia, we’re sent home? I am here today because I would like to propose a new law; a law that sends home the soldier that has the problem. Our new law is called “if you don’t like it, go home.” A law that discharges the soldier with the issue, the law that discharges the soldier with the real problem, the homophobic soldier that has the real negative effect on unit cohesion. A law that sends home the homophobe, a law that sends home the prejudiced. A law that doesn’t prosecute the gay soldier who fights for equality with no problem, but prosecutes the straight soldier who fights against it. Or perhaps that was a bit spun. … To be fair, it sends home the straight soldier who fights for some freedoms, for some equalities, but not for the equality of the gay. He is the one — or she is the one — under this new proposition who will be discharged for disrupting the military. If you are not committed to perform with excellence as a United States soldier because you don’t believe in full equality, go home. If you are not honorable enough to fight without prejudice, go home. If you are not capable of keeping your oath to the Armed Forces to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I will bear true faith and allegiance to do the same, unless there’s a gay soldier in my unit, then go home.

Or, moreover, if you serve this country, is it acceptable to be a cafeteria American soldier? Can you choose some things from the Constitution to put on your plate, but not others? A buffet, perhaps. I’m not talking about citizens — we have a right to grieve, to protest, we have a right to this rally — but I’m talking about soldiers. Should the military be allowed to treat Constitutional rights like a cafeteria? In the military, is it acceptable to be a cafeteria American? What I mean to say is, should soldiers and the government be able to pick and choose what we are fighting for in the Constitution or who we are fighting for? I wasn’t aware of this ambiguity in our Constitution. I thought the Constitution was ultimate. I thought equality was non- negotiable. And, let’s say, if the government can pick and choose who they’re fighting for, as exemplified in laws like “don’t ask, don’t tell,” shouldn’t we as Americans be made aware of this imbalance? Shouldn’t it be made clear to the citizens of this country, before we go to war, shouldn’t I be made aware ahead of time that some of us are just not included in that fight? “We’re going to war for you and you and you and you, but not you, because you’re gay.” You can risk your life for this country, but in the end, you’re not fighting for yourself; you’re fighting for straight people. … You are not included. You are not included when we say “equal.” You are not even fully included when we say “freedom.”

I’m here today in this park, in Maine, to say that, if the Senate and the president are not going to repeal this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, perhaps they should be more clear with us about who the military is fighting for, who our tax dollars are supporting and, ultimately, how much does the prime rib cost? Because I thought this was an “all you can eat” buffet. This equality stuff, I thought equality meant everyone. But apparently, for certain value meals, for certain civil rights, I have to pay extra, because I’m gay. I’m allowed to stand in a line next to other men and women, I’m allowed to get shot at and shoot a gun to protect myself and my nation, but when it’s time to order my meal, when it’s time to benefit from the freedoms of the Constitution that I protect and fight for, I have to pay extra. I shouldn’t have to pay extra. I should have the ability, the opportunity, the right to enjoy the same rights — the same piece of meat — that my fellow soldiers, fellow straight soldiers, already have included in their Meal of Rights. It’s prime rib, it’s the same size, it’s the same grade, the same cost, at wholesale cost, and it’s in the Constitution.

My name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. I am an American citizen, to the senate, to Americans, to Senator Olympia Snowe, Senator Susan Collins — both from Maine — and Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Equality is the prime rib of America. Equality is the prime rib of what we stand for as a nation. And I don’t get to enjoy the greatest cut of meat that my country has to offer. Are you listening? Shouldn’t everyone deserve the right to wear the same meat dress that I did? Repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” or go home. Go home. Thank you.”

FC7 Oprah Winfrey, Bob Hope Humanitarian Award acceptance speech, 54th Annual EMMY Awards, Los Angeles, USA, September 22, 2002.

Acquired at http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/Oprah-Winfrey/index.htm (accessed 5th July 2015)

“Thank you everybody. Thank you Tom, and Bob and Dolores, who are home watching I hope, thank you so much, and to everyone who voted for me. There really is nothing more important to me than striving to be a good human being. So, to be here tonight and be acknowledged as the first to receive this honor is beyond expression in words for me. 'I am a human being, nothing human is alien to me.' Terence said that in 154 B.C. and when I first read it many years ago, I had no idea of the depth of that meaning. I grew up in Nashville with a father who owned a barbershop, Winfrey's Barber Shop, he still does, I can't get him to retire. And every holiday, every holiday, all of the transients and the guys who I thought were just losers who hung out at the shop, and were always bumming haircuts from my father and borrowing money from my dad, all those guys always ended up at our dinner table. They were a cast of real characters—it was Fox and Shorty and Bootsy and Slim. And I would say, 'Bootsy, could you pass the peas please?' And I would often say to my father afterwards, 'Dad, why can't we just have regular people at our Christmas dinner?'—because I was looking for the Currier & Ives version. And my father said to me, 'They are regular people. They're just like you. They want the same thing you want.' And I would say, 'What?' And he'd say, 'To be fed.' And at the time, I just thought he was talking about dinner. But I have since learned how profound he really was, because we all are just regular people seeking the same thing. The guy on the street, the woman in the classroom, the Israeli, the Afghani, the Zuni, the Apache, the Irish, the Protestant, the Catholic, the gay, the straight, you, me—we all just want to know that we matter. We want validation. We want the same things. We want safety and we want to live a long life. We want to find somebody to love. Stedman, thank you. We want to find somebody to laugh with and have the power and the place to cry with when necessary. The greatest pain in life is to be invisible. What I've learned is that we all just want to be heard. And I thank all the people who continue to let me hear your stories, and by sharing your stories, you let other people see themselves and for a moment, glimpse the power to change and the power to triumph. Maya Angelou said, 'When you learn, teach. When you get, give.' I want you to know that this award to me means that I will continue to strive to give back to the world what it has given to me, so that I might even be more worthy of tonight's honor. Thank you.” FC8 Teri Hatcher, “I am one in three, and I WILL BE the one who yells from the rooftops until those numbers change”, the official UN commemoration of the International Day to End Violence against Women, New York, USA, November 25, 2014.

Acquired at http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/11/i-am-one-in-three-a- speech-by-teri-hatcher (accessed 5th July 2015)

“Your Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Your Excellency Ms. Lana Nusseibeh, Permanent Representative of United Arab Emirates to the United Nations, Madam Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, Distinguished Delegates, distinguished panelists, and dear guests,

My name is Teri Hatcher. I am honoured to be here today to recognize the International Day to End Violence against Women, followed by the 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence and the “Orange Your Neighbourhood” campaign. The colour orange is bright and optimistic and symbolizes a hope for a better world without the continued human rights violations against women and girls around the world. The status of violence against women continues to be calamitous. 120 million girls have experienced forced sexual acts, and it is estimated that half of all women killed each year are killed at the hand of an intimate partner or family member. My story sheds light on another grim statistic. This is a story about the dangers of silence. When I was seven years old I was sexually abused by my uncle. Convinced that it was my fault, that I had somehow caused this to happen, I never told anyone. I was silent. I did however, unsurprisingly, begin to act out. As a result, my mother made sure we didn’t see my uncle anymore, but no one ever asked exactly what had happened. We maintained silence. Finally, at 18, still too ashamed to say the words aloud, I wrote them in a journal for my mother to read. She confessed that she and my father had suspected something but had felt a mixture of anger and helplessness that paralyzed them into remaining silent. For years my family lived with this permeating guilt, anger and sadness. I was silent, they were silent and he, my uncle, was free and unaccountable. Jump ahead a few years to me in my 30’s… I was helping my parents pack up my childhood home and came across a current newspaper article about a beautiful 11-year-old girl named Sarah from my hometown. The story recounted how she had wrapped her head in a towel (in order to avoid making a mess) and shot herself in the head. Her reason? In her suicide note she implicated MY uncle who’d been sexually abusing her for some time. I was shocked, devastated, and overwhelmed by the idea that he had continued his abuse and now, even as he was well into his 60’s, he was the cause of this young girl’s pain and resulting death. How could this have happened? I thought. I reached out to the DA of the case, anonymously at first, another way to keep silent. But I wanted to see that my uncle would be held accountable and would go to jail. But as it turned out the case against him was anything but iron-clad. Sarah couldn’t testify against him, because of course, she was dead. They only had her letter. So the DA asked me to tell my story to help validate Sarah’s. My case could not be prosecuted, it was far passed the statute of limitations, but my deposition would establish a pattern and credibility. He wanted me to break my silence. And so I did. Tell my story. Out loud. For the world to hear. When my deposition was read in court, my uncle took a plea deal. He went to prison and died there. He was convicted and sentenced but nothing could undo the devastating violence this man left in his wake. I survived this abuse, and I helped Sarah’s family to feel some sense of victory and closure, but that doesn’t make me a hero or a victim. It only makes me one of three. I am simply one in three women who is forced to accept violence as a part of her life story. I am one of three women who for the rest of her life battles the voice in her head that accepts blame for abuse, a voice that is antithetical to self-esteem, self-worth and happiness. This is a statistic that has to change! One in three women can no longer have to face the stigma or fear that prevent them from seeking help. One in three women should NOT feel afraid to report it, as they too often do, because they are not believed or taken seriously. When society further shames the victim by asking “Why did the victim stay? Why didn’t she say anything?” instead of asking “Why did HE abuse her?,” we empower the abusers to continue their abuse. That one in three could be your mother, your daughter, your sister. It is unacceptable to not actively and passionately work to change a society in which ANY woman is violated, injured, tortured or killed. Everyone everywhere has a responsibility to end violence. I am one in three, and I WILL BE the one who yells from the rooftops until those numbers change. Until every woman who has faced abuse feels less alone and safe enough to have the courage to find her own voice – until violence against women is no longer a part of any woman’s story – silence will not be a part of mine. Thank you.”

FC9 Annie Lennox, “Why I am an HIV/AIDS activist”, TEDGlobal, Oxford, UK, July 18, 2010.

Acquired at http://www.ted.com/talks/annie_lennox_why_i_am_an_hiv_aids_activist/transcript?language= en (accessed 5th July 2015)

“I'm going to share with you the story as to how I have become an HIV/AIDS campaigner. And this is the name of my campaign: SING Campaign. In November of 2003, I was invited to take part in the launch of Nelson Mandela's 46664 Foundation -- that is his HIV/AIDS foundation. And 46664 is the number that Mandela had when he was imprisoned in Robben Island. And that's me with Youssou N'Dour, onstage, having the time of my life. The next day, all the artists were invited to join Mandela in Robben Island, where he was going to give a conference to the world's press, standing in front of his former prison cell. You can see the bars of the window there. It was quite a momentous occasion for all of us. In that moment in time, Mandela told the world's press that there was a virtual genocide taking place in his country; that post-apartheid Rainbow Nation, a thousand people were dying on a daily basis and that the front line victims, the most vulnerable of all, were women and children. This was a huge impact on my mind, because I am a woman and I am a mother, and I hadn't realized that the HIV/AIDS pandemic was directly affecting women in such a way. And so I committed -- when I left South Africa, when I left Capetown, I told myself, "This is going to be something that I have to talk about. I have to serve." And so, subsequently I participated in every single 46664 event that I could take part in and gave news conferences, interviews, talking and using my platform as a musician, with my commitment to Mandela -- out of respect for the tremendous, unbelievable work that he had done. Everyone in the world respects Nelson Mandela, everyone reveres Nelson Mandela. But do they all know about what has been taking place in South Africa, his country, the country that had one of the highest incidents of transmission of the virus? I think that if I went out into the street now and I told people what was happening there, they would be shocked. I was very, very fortunate a couple of years later to have met Zackie Achmat, the founder of Treatment Action Campaign, an incredible campaigner and activist. I met him at a 46664 event. He was wearing a t-shirt like the one I wear now. This is a tool -- this tells you I am in solidarity with people who have HIV, people who are living with HIV. And in a way because of the stigma, by wearing this t-shirt I say, "Yes, we can talk about this issue. It doesn't have to be in the closet." I became a member of Treatment Action Campaign and I'm very proud to be a member of that incredible organization. It's a grassroots campaign with 80 percent membership being women, most of whom are HIV-positive. They work in the field. They have tremendous outreach to the people who are living directly with the effects of the virus. They have education programs. They bring out the issues of stigma. It's quite extraordinary what they do. And yes, my SING Campaign has supported Treatment Action Campaign in the way that I have tried to raise awareness and to try to also raise funds. A lot of the funding that I have managed to raise has gone directly to Treatment Action Campaign and the incredible work that they do, and are still continuing to do in South Africa. So this is my SING Campaign. SING Campaign is basically just me and about three or four wonderful people who help to support me. I've traveled all over the world in the last two and a half years -- I went to about 12 different countries. Here I am in Oslo in Norway, getting a nice, fat check; singing in Hong Kong, trying to get people to raise money. In Johannesburg, I had the opportunity to play to a mainly white, middle-class South African audience who ended up in tears because I use film clips that really touch the heart, the whole nature, of this terrible tragedy that is taking place, that people are tending to avoid, because they are fatigued, and they really don't quite know what the solutions are. Aaron Motsoaledi, the current health minister, attended that concert and I had an opportunity to meet with him, and he gave his absolute commitment to try to making a change, which is absolutely necessary. This is in the Scottish Parliament. I've subsequently become an envoy for Scotland and HIV. And I was showing them my experiences and trying to, again, raise awareness. And once again, in Edinburgh with the wonderful African Children's Choir who I simply adore. And it's children like this, many of whom have been orphaned because of their family being affected by the AIDS virus. I'm sitting here in New York with Michel Sidibe -- he's the director of UNAIDS. And I'm very honored by the fact that Michel invited me, only a few months ago, to become a UNAIDS ambassador. And in this way, I've been strengthening my platform and broadening my outreach. The message that UNAIDS are currently sending out to the world is that we would like to see the virtual elimination of the transmission of the virus from mother to child by 2015. It's a very ambitious goal but we believe it can be achieved with political will. This can happen. And here I am with a pregnant woman, who is HIV positive and we're smiling, both of us are smiling, because we're very confident, because we know that that young woman is receiving treatment so her life can be extended to take care of the baby she's about to give birth to. And her baby will receive PMTCT, which will mean that that baby can be born free of the virus. Now that is prevention at the very beginning of life. It's one way to start looking at intervention with the AIDS pandemic. Now, I just would like to finish off to tell you the little story about Avelile. This is Avelile -- she goes with me wherever I go. I tell her story to everyone because she represents one of millions of HIV/AIDS orphans. Avelile's mother had HIV virus -- she died from AIDS-related illness. Avelile had the virus, she was born with the virus. And here she is at seven years old, weighing no more than a one year-old baby. At this point in her life, she's suffering with full-blown AIDS and had pneumonia. We met her in a hospital in the Eastern Cape and spent a whole afternoon with her -- an adorable child. The doctors and nurses were phenomenal. They put her on very special nutritious diet and took great care of her. And we didn't know when we left the hospital -- because we filmed her story -- we didn't know if she was going to survive. So, it was obviously -- it was a very emotional encounter and left us feeling very resonant with this direct experience, this one child, you know, that story. Five months later, we went back to South Africa to meet Avelile again. And I'm getting -- the hairs on my -- I don't know if you can see the hairs on my arms. They're standing up because I know what I'm going to show you. This is the transformation that took place. Isn't it extraordinary?) That round of applause is actually for the doctors and nurses of the hospital who took care of Avelile. And I take it that you appreciate that kind of transformation. So, I would like to say to you, each one in the audience, if you feel that every mother and every child in the world has the right to have access to good nutrition and good medical care, and you believe that the Millennium Development Goals, specifically five and six, should be absolutely committed to by all governments around the world -- especially in sub-Saharan Africa -- could you please stand up. I think that's fair to say, it's almost everyone in the hall. Thank you very much.”

FC10 Melinda Gates, Second Global Malaria Forum, Seattle, USA, October 18, 2011.

Acquired at http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Speeches/2011/10/Melinda- Gates-2011-Malaria-Forum (accessed 5th July 2015)

“Thank you, David. And thank you all for coming to our second malaria forum. The first forum stands out as one of the highlights of our work at the foundation so far. It was thrilling for Bill and me to talk about a big idea like eradicating malaria. We were inspired by the commitment of the people doing the work—all of you. You dedicated yourselves to battling malaria when almost no one else would. For decades, you struggled against the parasite on one front, and apathy on another. And you broke through. You ended a generation of inertia. Four years ago, we could feel your optimism, and your boldness stoked our ambition. It is an honor to have so many of you back to talk about the advances that have been made—and about the work we’re going to do together to keep pushing toward the ultimate goal. I first started learning about malaria just over 10 years ago, when Bill and I created our foundation. I still remember the relevant facts about the disease from back then.

It killed more than 1 million people year after year after year. The world was spending less than $100 million a year to stop it. There was no Global Fund, no President’s Malaria Initiative, no World Bank Booster Program. We were barely doing anything to control mosquitoes. We didn’t have very many bed nets, most weren’t treated with insecticide, and the few that were didn’t last more than several months. There were no rapid diagnostic tests. The only diagnostic tool was the microscope, which of course isn’t practical in most places where malaria is a threat. And the drugs we had weren’t effective. The parasite had developed resistance to chloroquine and SP, but no country was using artemisinin combination therapy. I recite this history, even though you know it better than I do, because it’s worth lingering over one point. If you had asked any reasonable person to review the facts, acquaint themselves with the history of malaria and the biology of the parasite, and then project the course of the disease over the next 10 years—what would they have predicted?

More sickness and more death. How could they have predicted otherwise? The situation was already dire, the trend was negative, and the interventions that could reverse it didn’t exist. But you averted that disaster. Your work generated a whole host of new tools and the political commitment to deploy them aggressively. By the time of our first forum, the leading indicators were positive. But the real impact was still in the future. In my speech in 2007, I said, “It is possible using the tools we have today to dramatically drive down the number of cases.” Today, I can say with absolute certainty that it is not merely possible. It is happening. Worldwide, malaria deaths are down 20 percent since 2000. What’s just as impressive is where this progress is happening—in sub-Saharan Africa. During the eradication era of the 1950s and 1960s, the global health community pursued an everywhere-but-Africa strategy. The plan was to start at the margins, where there was less disease; build momentum; and finish with the hardest cases. Unfortunately, we lost momentum quickly and never made it to the hardest cases. There were various successful pilot projects in sub-Saharan Africa, but it wasn’t until about five years ago that we saw most countries across the region scaling up malaria control simultaneously. This summer, Bill and I went to Tanzania to see what progress looks like. It looks like this. This line is the amount of money spent by the Global Fund and PMI to fight malaria in Tanzania. This line is the percentage of households that own a bed net in Tanzania. And this third line is the number of malaria deaths prevented in Tanzania over the past decade. As you can see, all three lines have risen sharply, and risen together. Progress also looks like this. This is Said Shukru. He is two years old, and when his mother brought him to the hospital, he was unconscious with malaria. But he is alive today because he received the treatment he needed. Several years ago, his older sister got sick with malaria, too. She didn’t get treatment, and she died. Said’s mother has felt the difference between then and now more keenly than any one of us. For her, it is the difference between her daughter’s tragic death and her enormous hopes for her healthy son. We can’t change the past, but Said’s recovery is proof that we are changing the future. When I reflect on the progress since 2000, I am filled with optimism about what we can accomplish next. I say what we can accomplish because, while today’s advances show us what’s possible, they are not an accurate predictor of what will happen tomorrow. What matters is our staying power. We need to keep on seizing the opportunity to make new progress against malaria every single day. F. Scott Fitzgerald said “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in your head at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” The malaria community must pass this test. The first idea is that this is a time for celebration. You deserve to be proud of everything you’ve accomplished. Your devotion helped turn a hopeless situation into an opportunity, so you can be confident that your continued devotion will turn the opportunity into success. But there is an opposed idea that you also must hold in your head. It is this: We are at the early stages, and we cannot feel satisfaction. The road ahead is long and arduous. We always said we knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Now we are going to find out how hard it really is. So what do we have to do? First, we have to move even faster. In the past decade, the amount of money raised for malaria has increased by more than a factor of 10. That is stunning. But funding needs to double yet again to fill the gap between what is available and what is needed. We have produced more than 300 million bed nets, enough nets to cover 80 percent of the population at risk in Africa. We have to deliver all those nets. Given that we have enough nets to cover 80 percent of those at risk in Africa, it’s worrying that bed net ownership is hovering around 50 percent. That’s tens of millions of nets that aren’t getting to the people who need them. Why not? What causes delays in procurement? Where are the bottlenecks in the supply chain? We must ask those questions, answer them, and then act. Right now, across sub-Saharan Africa, it’s a coin flip whether a child is sleeping under a net. We have more work to do. The averaged figures I just cited obscure the wide range of coverage from country to country. Many countries are doing very well. Mali, for example, is well above 80 percent coverage. But some countries are failing, pure and simple. There are countries where the percentage of children sleeping under nets is under 20 percent. That means tens of millions of children still have no protection whatsoever. As far as they’re concerned, nothing has changed since 2000. We must devise the plan to rectify that now. We cannot leave the hardest cases until the end. We’ve seen what happens under that strategy. After we speed up progress, the second thing we have to do is maintain it. As you know better than anybody, malaria fights back. Progress against malaria is by definition fragile progress. Resistance to artemisinin is already developing along the Thai-Cambodia border. The problem is now spreading into Myanmar and Vietnam. Ominously, chloroquine resistance developed in the same area—and it followed the same path, until it reached India and jumped to Africa. The WHO set up a special unit recently to help lead the response, and the data indicates that the problem is being contained. It is critical that the world put a stop to the use of oral artemisinin monotherapies that accelerate resistance. We cannot afford to lose this drug so soon. Resistance is not the only threat. In Zambia, where progress against malaria had been steady, the number of deaths edged up in 2010. While annual fluctuations in malaria are normal, an investigation revealed that the increase was centered in two provinces where worn-out bed nets weren’t replaced. The resurgence in Zambia is especially scary because it is so typical. In June, the researcher David Smith and his collaborators wrote a piece for Science about Zanzibar’s up-and-down history with malaria. They included a graph of the malaria burden in Zanzibar, and it oscillated like a sine wave. They headlined the article, “Solving the Sisyphean Problem of Malaria in Zanzibar.” Now, Margaret Chan is not the only reader of Homer out there. Our son Rory also loves Greek mythology, so when I think about the history of malaria, the image of Sisyphus pushing a heavy boulder up a mountain pops into my head, too. The lesson is clear: the boulder of malaria control can come crashing down if we lose focus. And it’s not just Zanzibar. You see this pattern over and over again, all around the world. Here’s a picture of Bhutan. Looks the same. Here’s a picture of Paraguay. Looks the same. Mexico. The same. The good news in these three countries is that they got back on track, levels are currently low, and they are included among the group of 32 countries currently planning to eliminate malaria. Still, the challenges the malaria community faces are enormous. How do we not only maintain but increase funding in the worst financial crisis in six decades? How do we help countries scale up even when they don’t seem to have the will to do so? Once we’ve gotten malaria levels down, how do we keep them down? The answer to all these questions is leadership. When ordinary responses aren’t good enough, leaders inspire us to do the extraordinary. Methodist Bishop Thomas Bickerton believes the meaning of the scripture is the service rendered by millions of Methodists, so his church created the “Imagine No Malaria” campaign. He took something that was none of his business and made it his business. Now Methodists from all over the United States have made it their business, too, by donating to the cause. Dr. Salim Abdullah is the director of a research institute in Tanzania—and a principal investigator on the RTS,S vaccine trial. Bill and I were struck by his ability to think two, three, or four steps ahead. He does not focus on the single scientific problem in front of him. Instead, he’s constantly strategizing about how the scientific community can solve the big problems in the field. President Kikwete of Tanzania helped create the African Leaders Malaria Alliance. ALMA releases a scorecard to make the progress of all member countries a matter of public record. Malaria ran rampant for 30 years because no one felt accountable. President Kikwete asked to be held accountable, and he encouraged dozens of his peers to volunteer to do the same. President Kikwete of Tanzania helped create the African Leaders Malaria Alliance. ALMA releases a scorecard to make the progress of all member countries a matter of public record. Malaria ran rampant for 30 years because no one felt accountable. President Kikwete asked to be held accountable, and he encouraged dozens of his peers to volunteer to do the same. In this room, there are leaders like Awa Coll-Seck, who has led the Roll Back Malaria Partnership for the past eight years. The amount she has been able to accomplish in that time is incredible, but incredible will have to become the standard if we hope to defeat this disease. I am confident that we will. Because we are not stuck in a Greek myth. We are not eternally doomed like Sisyphus. We control our own destiny. We learn from our past. We have ambition and courage and passion. We will push the boulder, and push it, until it crests the mountain and rolls down the other side— until every child is safe. Thank you.”

FEMALE POLITICIANS (marked as FP, standing for Female Politician): Hillary Clinton (FP1) - an American presidential candidate 2016 Benazir Bhutto (FP2) - was the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan, Queen Elizabeth II (FP3) – the Queen of the UK, Bella Abzug (FP4) - was as an American lawyer, Amal Clooney (FP5) - a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer, Aung San Suu Kyi (FP6) - a Burmese stateswoman, Angela Merkel (FP7) – the first female Chancellor of Germany, Madeline Albright (FP8) - an American politician and diplomat, Indira Gandhi (FP9) – the only female Indian Prime Minister, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (FP10) - the 24th and current President of Liberia.

FP1 Hillary Clinton, Address to UN 4th World Congress on Women, Beijing, China, September 5, 1995.

Acquired at http://www.speeches-usa.com/Transcripts/102_clinton.html (accessed April 15th 2013)

“Mrs. Mongella, distinguished delegates and guests: I would like to thank the Secretary General of the United Nations for inviting me to be part of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. This is truly a celebration -- a celebration on the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in their communities, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens and leaders. It is also a coming together, much the way women come together every day in every country. We come together in fields and in factories. In village markets and supermarkets. In living rooms and board rooms. Whether it is while playing with our children in the park, or washing clothes in a river, or taking a break at the office water cooler, we come together and talk about our aspirations and concerns. And time and again, our talk turns to our children and our families. However different we may be, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share a common future. And we are here to find common ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world - - and in so doing, bring new strength and stability to families as well. By gathering in Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues that matter most in the lives of women and their families: access to education, health care, jobs, and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal and human rights and participate fully in the political life of their countries. There are some who question the reason for this conference. Let them listen to the voices of women in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces. There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to economic and political progress around the globe. . . Let them look at the women gathered here and at Huairou. . . the homemakers, nurses, teachers, lawyers, policymakers, and women who run their own businesses. It is conferences like this that compel governments and peoples everywhere to listen, look and face the world's most pressing problems.Wasn't it after the women's conference in Nairobi ten years ago that the world focused for the first time on the crisis of domestic violence? Earlier today, I participated in a World Health Organization forum, where government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working on ways to address the health problems of women and girls. Tomorrow, I will attend a gathering of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. There, the discussion will focus on local - - and highly successful -- programs that give hard-working women access to credit so they can improve their lives and the lives of their families. What we are learning around the world is that, if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations will flourish. That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on our planet has a stake in the discussion that takes place here. Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to women, children and families. Over the past two-and-a-half years, I have had the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing women in my country and around the world. I have met new mothers in Jojakarta, Indonesia, who come together regularly in their village to discuss nutrition, family planning, and baby care.

I have met working parents in Denmark who talk about the comfort they feel in knowing that their children can be cared for in creative, safe, and nurturing after-school centers. I have met women in South Africa who helped lead the struggle to end apartheid and are now helping build a new democracy.

I have met with the leading women of the Western Hemisphere who are working every day to promote literacy and better health care for the children of their countries. I have met women in India and Bangladesh who are taking out small loans to buy milk cows, rickshaws, thread and other materials to create a livelihood for themselves and their families. I have met doctors and nurses in Belarus and Ukraine who are trying to keep children alive in the aftermath of Chernobyl. The great challenge of this conference is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard. Women comprise more than half the world's population. Women are 70% percent of the world's poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write. Women are the primary caretakers for most of the world's children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued - - not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders. At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries.Women are also dying from diseases that should have been prevented or treated; they are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation; they are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers; they are being forced into prostitution, and they are being barred from the ballot box and the bank lending office. Those of us with the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not. As an American, I want to speak up for women in my own country -- women who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can't afford health care or child care, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes. I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air and clean airwaves . . . for older women, some of them widows, who have raised their families and now find that their skills and life experiences are not valued in the workplace . . . for women who are working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, and fast food chefs so that they can be at home during the day with their kids . . . and for women everywhere who simply don't have enough time to do everything they are called upon to do each day. Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The truth is that most women around the world work both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity. We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential. We must also recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected. Our goals for this conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women to take greater control over their own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments - here and around the world - accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights. The international community has long acknowledged - - and recently affirmed at Vienna - - that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear. No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture. Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world's refugees. And when women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse. I believe that, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights. These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear. It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will. If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights . . . And women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely. And the right to be heard. Women must enjoy the right to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure. It is indefensible that many women in non-governmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend - - or have been prohibited from fully taking part. Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions. In my country, we recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage. It took 150 years after the signing of our Declaration of Independence for women to win the right to vote. It took 72 years of organized struggle on the part of many courageous women and men. It was one of America's most divisive philosophical wars. But it was also a bloodless war. Suffrage was achieved without a shot fired. We have also have been reminded, in V-J Day observances last weekend, of the good that comes when men and women join together to combat the forces of tyranny and build a better world. We have seen peace prevail in most places for a half century. We have avoided another world war.

But we have not solved older, deeply rooted problems that continue to diminish the potential of half the world's population.

Now it is time to act on behalf of women everywhere. If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too. Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care; families rely on women for labor in the home; and increasingly, families rely on women for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives.As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace around the world - - as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled and subjected to violence in and out of their homes - - the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized. Let this conference be our - - and the world's - - call to action. And let us heed the call so that we can create a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future. Thank you very much. God's blessings on you, your work and all who benefit from it.”

FP2 Benazir Bhutto, “Equality and Partnership”, Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China, September 4, 1995.

Acquired at http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/equality_and_partnership.htm (accessed 5th July 2015)

“Madam Chairperson, Mr. Secretary General, Distinguished delegates, sisters Pakistan is grateful to the Government and the people of China for hosting this Conference. We have been deeply touched by the warm welcome and gracious hospitality. I pay a special tribute to the Secretary General of the United Nations and Mrs. Gertrude Mongella, the Secretary General of the Conference for their tireless efforts in organizing this meeting. My dear sisters, ladies and gentlemen! There is a moral crisis engulfing the world as we speak, a crisis of injustice and inaction, a crisis of silence and acquiescence. The crisis is caused by centuries and generations of oppression and repression. This conference, therefore, transcends politics and economics. We are dealing with a fundamental moral issue. This is a truly historic occasion. Some 40,000 women have assembled here to demand their rights; to secure a better future for their daughters; to put an end to the prejudices which still deny so many of us our rightful place in society. On this solemn occasion I stand before you not only as a Prime Minister but as a woman and a mother—A woman proud of her cultural and religious heritage, a woman sensitive to the obstacles to justice and full participation that still stand before women in almost every society on earth. As the first woman ever elected to head an Islamic nation, I feel a special responsibility towards women's issues and towards all women. And as a Muslim woman, I feel a special responsibility to counter the propaganda of a handful that Islam gives women a second class status. This is not true. Today the Muslim world boasts three women Prime Ministers, elected by male and female voters on our abilities as people, as persons, not as women. Our election has destroyed the myth built by social taboo that a woman's place is in the house, that it is shameful or dishonorable or socially unacceptable for a Muslim woman to work. Our election has given women all over the Muslim world moral strength to declare that it is socially correct for a woman to work and to follow in our footsteps as working women and working mothers. Muslim women have a special responsibility to help distinguish between Islamic teachings and social taboos spun by the traditions of a patriarchal society. This is a distinction that obscurantists would not like to see. For obscurantists believe in discrimination. Discrimination is the first step to dictatorship and the usurpation of power. A month ago, Pakistan hosted the first ever conference of Women Parliamentarians of Muslim world. Never in the history of Islam had so many working women and elected representatives gathered together at one place to speak in one voice. As over a 100 delegates from 35 Muslim countries gathered together, I felt an enormous sense of pride that we women had each other for strength and support, across the globe and across the continents to face and oppose those who would not allow the empowerment of women. And, today, I feel that same sense of pride, that we women have gathered together at Beijing, at this ancient capital of an ancient civilization to declare: we are not alone in our search for empowerment, that women across continents are together in the search for self-esteem, self- worth, self-respect and respect in society itself. In distinguishing between Islamic teachings and social taboos, we must remember that Islam forbids injustice; Injustice against people, against nations, against women. It shuns race, color, and gender as a basis of distinction amongst fellowmen. It enshrines piety as the sole criteria for judging humankind. It treats women as human beings in their own right, not as chattels. A woman can inherit, divorce, receive alimony and child custody. Women were intellectuals, poets, jurists and even took part in war. The Holy Book of the Muslims refers to the rule of a woman, the Queen of Sabah. The Holy Book alludes to her wisdom and to her country being a land of plenty. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) himself married a working woman. And the first convert to Islam was a woman, Bibi Khadija. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) emphatically condemned and put an end to the practice of female infanticide in pre-Islamic Arabia. The Holy Quran reads: When news is brought to one of them, of the birth of a female (child), his face darkens and he is filled with inward grief what shame does he hide himself from his people because of the bad news he has had. Shall he retain it on sufferance and contempt, or bury it in the dust. Ah ! what an evil choice they decide on (Surah Al-Nahl, Ayat-57, 58, 59) Ladies and gentlemen! How true these words ring even today. How many women are still "retained" in their families "on sufferance and contempt" growing up with emotional scars and burdens. How tragic it is that the pre-Islamic practice of female infanticide still haunts a world we regard as modern and civilized. Girl children are often abandoned or aborted. Statistics show that me now increasingly outnumber women in more than 15 Asian nations. Boys are wanted. Boys are wanted because their worth is considered more than that of the girl. Boys are wanted to satisfy the ego: they carry on the father's name in this world. Yet too often we forget that for Muslims on the Day of Judgment, each person will be called not by their father's name but by the mother's name. To please her husband, a woman wants a son. To keep her husband from abandoning her, a woman wants a son. And, too often, when a woman expects a girl, she abets her husband in abandoning or aborting that innocent, perfectly formed child. As we gather here today, the cries of the girl child reach out to us. This conference need to chart a course that can create a climate where the girl child is as welcomed and valued as a boy child, that the girl child is considered as worthy as a boy child. When I was chairperson of the South Asian Association of Regional Countries, SAARC declared 1989 as the Year of the Girl Child. Six years later, the girl child's vulnerability continues. And it continues, not because of religion in the case of Pakistan, but because of social prejudice. The rights Islam gave Muslim women have too often been denied. And women are denied rights all over the world, whether developed or developing. All over the world women are subjected to domestic violence. Often a woman does not walk out for she has nowhere to go. Or she stays and puts up with the domestic violence for the sake of her children. We in Pakistan have started a public awareness campaign against domestic violence through the mass media to inform women that domestic violence is a crime and to alert men that they can be punished for it. Often women, in many a society are tortured, not only by men, but by women in-laws too, for financial benefits from the woman's family. Sometime a wife is killed by her husband or in-laws so that they can gain another wife and more dowry. Dowry system is a social ill against which we must raise our voices and create greater awareness. Women are not only victims of physical abuse, women are victims of verbal abuse. Often men, in anger and frustration, indulge in the uncivilized behavior of rude and vulgar language against women. Unfortunately, women at times also use vulgar language to denigrate another woman. So we have to work together to change not only the attitudes of men but the attitudes of men and women. Women have become the victims of a culture of exclusion and male dominance. Today more women than men suffer from poverty, deprivation, and discrimination. Half a billion women are illiterate. Seventy per cent of the children who are denied elementary education are girls. In Pakistan we are concentrating on primary education for girls to rectify this imbalance. We are concentrating on training women teachers and opening up employment avenues for women. It is my firm conviction that a woman cannot ultimately control her own life and make her own choices unless she has financial independence. A woman cannot have financial independence if she cannot work. The discrimination against women can only begin to erode when women are educated and women are employed. If my Father had not educated me or left me with independent financial means, I would not have been able to sustain myself or to struggle against tyranny or to stand here before you today as a special guest speaker. If the girl child is to be valued, if the wife is to say "No" to domestic violence then we owe a special obligation to creating jobs for women. That is why we in Pakistan, set up in 1989 the Women's Bank. A Bank run by women for women to aid and assist women in setting up their own enterprises to gain financial independence and with it the freedom to make one's own choices. Today 23 branches of the Women's Bank in Pakistan help working women. Our major cities are marked by enterprises set up by women: bakeries, restaurants, boutiques, interior decoration. We have lifted the ban on Pakistani women taking part in international sporting events. In 1997 we host the Second Muslim Women's Olympics. Special sporting facilities are being set up to encourage participation by Pakistani women in sports. And Pakistani women are playing a significant role in defusing the population bomb in Pakistan. One hundred thousand women are to be trained to reduce Pakistan's population growth levels and its infant mortality levels. When I visit poverty stricken villages with no access to clean drinking water, it gladdens my heart to see a lady health visitor, to see a working woman amidst the unfortunate surroundings. For it is my conviction that we can only conquer poverty, squalor, illiteracy and superstition when we invest in our women and when our women begin working. Begin working in our far flung villages where time seems to have stood still and where the Bullock not the tractor is still used for cultivation; Where women are too weak from bearing too many children. Where the daughters are more malnourished than the sons for the daughters get to eat the leftovers. Where villagers work night and day with their women and children, to eke out an existence; Where floods and rain wash out crops and destroy homes; Where poverty stalks the land with an appetite that cannot be controlled until we wake up to the twin reality of population control and women's empowerment. And it is here that the United Nations and its Secretary General have played a critical role. Distinguished Delegates! Some cynics argue about the utility of holding this conference. Let me disagree with them. The holding of this conference demonstrates that women are not forgotten, that the world cares. The holding of this conference demonstrates solidarity with women. The holding of this conference makes us determined to contribute each in our own way, in any manner we can, to lessen the oppression, repression and discrimination against women. And while much needs to be done, each decade has brought with it its own small improvement. When I was growing up, women in my extended family remained behind closed walls in village homes. Now we all travel to cities or abroad. When I was growing up, women in my extended family all covered ourselves with the Burqa, or veil from head to foot when we visited each others for weddings or funerals— the only two items for which we were allowed out. Now most women restrict themselves to the Duppatta or Chadar and are free to leave the house. When I was growing up, no girl in my extended family was allowed to marry if a boy cousin was not available for fear of the property leaving the family. Now girls do marry outside the family. When I was growing up, the boy cousin inevitably took a second wife. Now girls do not expect their husbands to marry again. From the norm, it has become the exception to the norm. When I was growing up, women were not educated. I was the first girl in my family to go to university and to go abroad for my studies. Now it has become the norm for girls to be educated at university and abroad when the families can afford it. I have seen a lot of changes in my lifetime. But I hope to see many more changes and some of these changes I hope will flow from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights calling for the elimination of discrimination against women. I hope some of these changes will flow from the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination which Pakistan signed last month. Of course there was resistance from many quarters. But we are determined to move forward in fulfilling our dream of a Pakistan where women contribute their full potential. Distinguished Delegates! As women, we draw satisfaction from Beijing Platform of Action which encompasses a comprehensive approach towards the empowerment of women. But women cannot be expected to struggle alone against the forces of discrimination and exploitation. I recall the words of Dante who reminded us that: "The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis." Today in this world, in the fight for the liberation of women, there can be no neutrality. But my dear sisters, we have learned that democracy alone is not enough. Freedom of choice alone does not guarantee justice. Equal rights are not defined only by political values. Social justice is a triad of freedom, of equality, of liberty: Justice is political liberty. Justice is economic independence. Justice is social equality. Delegates, Sisters! Empowerment is not only a right to have political freedom. Empowerment is the right to be independent; to be educated; to have choices in life. Empowerment is the right to have the opportunity to select a productive career; to own property; to participate in business; to flourish in the market place. Pakistan is satisfied that the draft Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women negotiated so far focuses on the critical areas of concern for women and outlines an action- oriented strategy for the solution of their problems. However, we believe that the Platform needs to address the questions of new and additional resources, external debt, structural adjustment programs, human rights of women, protection of women entrapped in armed conflicts and the realization of the right to self-determination of the territories still under foreign occupation and alien domination. It must also seek to strengthen the role of the traditional family as the bedrock of the society. Disintegration of the family generates moral decay. This must be arrested. The Platform is disturbingly weak on the role of the traditional family. This weakness can lead to misinterpretation, and even distortion by opponents of the women's agenda. We have seen much progress. The very fact that we convene in Beijing today is a giant step forward. But new clouds darken the horizon. The end of the cold war should have ushered in peace and an era of progress of women. Regrettably, the proliferation of regional tensions and conflicts have belied our aspirations. As in the past, women and girls have again been the most direct victims of these conflicts—the most helpless, and thus the most abused. The use of rape as a weapon of war and an instrument of "ethnic cleansing" is as depraved as it is reprehensible. The unfolding of this saga in different parts of the world, including Jammu and Kashmir and Bosnia Herzegovina has shaken the conscience of the entire international community. The enormity of the tragedy dwarfs our other issues—urgent though they are. This conference must, therefore, express its complete solidarity with our sisters and daughters who are victims of armed conflict, oppression, and brutality. Their misfortunes must be our first priority. Madam Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen! I come before you to speak of the forces that must shape the new decade, the new century, the new millennium. We must shape a world free from exploitation and maltreatment of women. A world in which women have opportunities to rise to the highest level in politics, business, diplomacy, and other spheres of life. Where there are no battered women. Where honor and dignity is protected in war and conflict. Where we have economic freedom and independence. Where we are equal partners in peace and development. A world equally committed to economic development and political development. A world as committed to free markets as to women's emancipation. And even as we catalogue, organize, and reach our goals, step by step by step, let us be ever vigilant. Repressive forces always will stand ready to exploit the moment and push us back into the past. Let us remember the words of the German writer, Goethe: "Freedom has to be re-made and re- earned in every generation." We must do much more than decry the past. We must change the future. Remembering the words of a sister parliamentarian Senator, Barbara Mikulski, that "demography is destiny", I believe time, justice and the forces of history are on our side. We are here in Beijing to proclaim a new vision of equality and partnership. Let us translate this vision into reality in the shortest possible time. Thank you Madam Chairperson.”

FP3 HM Elizabeth II, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, New York, USA, July 6, 2010.

Acquired at http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/address_to_the_un_general_assembly_elizabeth_2 010.htm (accessed 5th July 2015)

“Mr. President, Secretary-General, Members of the General Assembly, I believe I was last here in 1957.

Since then, I have travelled widely and met many leaders, ambassadors and statesmen from around the world. I address you today as Queen of sixteen United Nations Member States and as Head of the Commonwealth of 54 countries.

I have also witnessed great change, much of it for the better, particularly in science and technology, and in social attitudes. Remarkably, many of these sweeping advances have come about not because of governments, committee resolutions, or central directives — although all these have played a part — but instead because millions of people around the world have wanted them.

For the United Nations, these subtle yet significant changes in people's approach to leadership and power might have foreshadowed failure and demise. Instead, the United Nations has grown and prospered by responding and adapting to these shifts.

But also, many important things have not changed. The aims and values which inspired the United Nations Charter endure: to promote international peace, security and justice; to relieve and remove the blight of hunger, poverty and disease; and to protect the rights and liberties of every citizen.

The achievements of the United Nations are remarkable. When I was first here, there were just three United Nations operations overseas. Now over 120,000 men and women are deployed in 26 missions across the world. You have helped to reduce conflict, you have offered humanitarian assistance to millions of people affected by natural disasters and other emergencies, and you have been deeply committed to tackling the effects of poverty in many parts of the world.

But so much remains to be done. Former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold once said that "constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon." Good nurses get better with practice. Sadly the supply of patients never ceases. This September, leaders will meet to agree how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals when each nation will have its own distinctive contribution to make. New challenges have also emerged which have tested this organization as much as its member states. One such is the struggle against terrorism. Another challenge is climate change, where careful account must be taken of the risks facing smaller, more vulnerable nations, many of them from the Commonwealth.

Mr. President, I started by talking about leadership. I have much admiration for those who have the talent to lead, particularly in public service and in diplomatic life — and I congratulate you, your colleagues and your predecessors on your many achievements.

It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all. I know of no single formula for success, but over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal, and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration, to work together.

Since I addressed you last, the Commonwealth, too, has grown vigorously to become a group of nations representing nearly two billion people. It gives its whole-hearted support to the significant contributions to the peace and stability of the world made by the United Nations and its agencies. Last November, when I opened the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, I told the delegates that the Commonwealth had the opportunity to lead. Today I offer you the same message. For over six decades the United Nations has helped to shape the international response to global dangers. The challenge now is to continue to show this clear and convening leadership while not losing sight of your ongoing work to secure the security, prosperity and dignity of our fellow human beings.

When people in fifty-three years from now look back on us, they will doubtless view many of our practices as old-fashioned. But it is my hope that, when judged by future generations, our sincerity, our willingness to take a lead, and our determination to do the right thing, will stand the test of time.

In my lifetime, the United Nations has moved from being a high-minded aspiration to being a real force for common good. That of itself has been a signal achievement. But we are not gathered here to reminisce. In tomorrow's world, we must all work together as hard as ever if we are truly to be United Nations.”

FP4 Bella Abzug, “Women Will Not Stop”, Plenary Speech, at the Fourth World Conference On Women, Beijing, China, September 12, 1995.

Acquired at http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/women_will_not_stop.htm (accessed 5th July 2015)

“What will we accomplish at the week's end when the Platform for Action is adopted by the world's women and its 187 governments?

We are building a consensus to face life's realities. The affirmation of women's sexual rights is an important and bold step forward. We are creating a better environment, attributing the cause of environmental degradation to unsustainable over-consumption and production and military conflict.

We are affirming human rights for all women and girls, acknowledging the full range of diversity that exists and detailing actions to prevent violence. We are generating better opportunities for women who are living at the margins of life, women who are the majority of the world's poor, hungry and illiterate. Women who would transform the lives of themselves and their families with just a five percent slice of the military pie. That would be a banquet for the world's 1.3 billion poor. We are strengthening all families by supporting their economic and social needs. We are fashioning new ways to involve women at all stages of negotiation and decision-making. From kitchen tables to peace tables women propose to turn the tables on the status quo. We are challenging all corporations to play by the rules and all governments to ensure that the rules are fair. We are moving a political, social and economic agenda for equality and democracy. Democracy within homes, markets and the state. From Beijing, the world will never be the same.

Beijing has given birth to a global movement for democracy that as Gertrude Mongella said in her opening statement in the Great Hall of the People, is a "revolution." New partnerships between men and women based on real equality. Imperfect though it may be, the Beijing Platform for Action is the strongest statement of consensus on women's equality, empowerment and justice ever produced by governments. The Beijing Platform is a consolidation of the previous UN conference agreements in the unique context of seeing it through women's eyes. It is an agenda for change, fueled by the momentum of civil society, based on a transformational vision of a better world for all. We are bringing women into politics to change the nature of politics, to change the vision, to change the institutions. Women are not wedded to the policies of the past. We didn't craft them. They didn't let us. As women, we know that we must always find ways to change the process because the present institutions want to hold on to power and keep the status quo. Just five short years ago, we developed the Women's Caucus methodology to influence the global agenda at the UN for the Earth Summit. WEDO and countless other NGOs have carried this work forward, linking the gains made at each conference, trying to prevent collective amnesia by governments.

Now as we leave Beijing, women will not stop. It's like jet propulsion. The fact that so many women made such an effort to participate in this historic conference is a testament to the seriousness of the agenda. Now, women around the world own this agenda. Women will ensure that others know about the provisions agreed to and the commitments made and millions will press their governments to follow through.

One year after the Cairo conference, the Earth Summit Watch (initiated by the National Resources Defense Council, WEDO and other NGOs) presented Nafiz Sadik, the head of UNFPA with a one year progress report on how governments are doing in their implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action. The results of the first global survey revealed that only one-third of governments bothered to reply. But 46 of the 54 countries that did respond to the survey said that they have initiated policies and programs to implement ICPD. Some such as Japan, South Africa, Thailand, Pakistan and the UK said they increased funding for reproductive health and social services. But serious efforts to implement the Cairo principles are sadly lacking in most countries despite ever-vigilant and diligent women's groups and NGOs.

I raise the issue of implementation today to remind each of us of the importance of the commitments governments made here. Sadly, only one- third actually picked up the challenge and announced actions. Governments watered down the language to make it harder for people to track the commitments, but NGOs in the Linkage Caucus were not side- tracked. We know that some 60 countries made commitments covering different critical areas of concern. A majority of commitments dealt with balancing work and family responsibilities, health and education. Many proposed new mechanisms and targets, goals or positive action to increase women in political office. Only a couple proposed actions to respond to armed conflict, a half dozen were to combat violence. Once pledged, governments must direct sufficient resources to these initiatives. Japan announced more resources for women in development. The US announced a six year $1.6 billion antiviolence program. India pledged to spend 6 percent of its GDP on education, up from 2.5 percent of GDP currently.

These examples hearken a new era of action. In March, the Linkage Caucus proposed that we focus on achieving gender justice. Five steps were called for: implementation, integration, accountability, enforcement and resources. We look forward to the day when each country will assemble its national action plan and develop the political will to implement the full Platform for action before 1996. You can be sure that when this conference ends, we will still be looking at our governments, closely, critically, urgently and hopefully to ensure that you hold to and make real the commitments entered into here. Each of us returns home to our countries and communities with concrete steps to take, with a road map for accountability and a comprehensive agenda for progress.

Some wonder how I have kept going for so long and how I manage to remain optimistic. When governments were removing the brackets from the document over the last two weeks, the French tested another nuclear weapon in the Pacific, NATO was bombing Bosnia and the Serbs were shelling Sarajevo. Refugee camps overflowed in too many places around this globe. Conditions for women on factory floors did not change. Women died in childbirth and in their homes Hunger gnawed at the bellies of millions. The world went on, in its downward spiral we all know all too well. In the face of so much pain, I remain an incurable optimist. I am fueled by the passion of the women I have been privileged to meet and work with, buoyed by their hope for peace, justice and democracy. I am strengthened by each of them. And to each government delegate who pushed the boundaries of progress I thank you. I thank the United Nations and my sisters in the NGO community for your good humor and hard work. I wish each of you well and sustainable optimism for the days ahead. Never underestimate the importance of what we are doing here. Never hesitate to tell the truth. And never, ever give in or give up.”

FP5 Amal Clooney, Speech at the United Nations with Nadia Murad UNODC Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, September 16, 2016.

Acquired at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/amal-clooney-delivers-damning- speech-to-the-un-over-isis-genocide-i-wish-i-could-say-im-proud-to-be-a7313551.html (accessed September 20th 2016)

“Nadia’s mother was one of 80 older women who were executed and buried in an unmarked grave. Her brothers were part of a group of 600 murdered in a single day. Make no mistake: what Nadia has told us about is genocide, and genocide doesn’t happen by accident. You have to plan it. Before the genocide began two years ago, the Isis resurgence fatwa department studied the Yazidis, and concluded that as a Kurdish-speaking group that did not have a holy book, they were non-believers whose enslavement was a 'firmly established aspect of sharia'. This is why, according to Isis’ warped morality, only Yazidis, unlike other minority groups, can be systematically raped. Isis even released a pamphlet entitled 'Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slaves' to provide more guidelines, [answering questions like]: ”is it permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who has not reached puberty." [The answer was yes.] […] This is the first time I have spoken in this chamber. I wish I could say I'm proud to be here but I am not. I am ashamed as a supporter of the United Nations that states are failing to prevent or even punish genocide because they find that their own interests get in the way. I am ashamed as a lawyer that there is no justice being done and barely a complaint being made about it. I am ashamed as a woman that girls like Nadia could have their bodies sold and used as battlefields. I am ashamed as a human being that we ignore their cries for help. We know that what we have before us is genocide, and we know that it is still ongoing. We know exactly who the perpetrators are. They brag. Isis brags about its crimes online. There is no-one more blameless than the young Yazidi girl who has lost everything and who today comes before you and asks for your help. Yet two years on, two years after the genocide began, 3,200 Yazidi women and children are still held captive by Isis and not a single member of Isis has been prosecuted in a court anywhere in the world for crimes committed against the Yazidi. “ [...] Nadia and others like her are not seeking revenge, they are seeking justice. The opportunity to face their abusers in an international court at the Hague. I am proud to sit beside this young woman whose strength and leadership astounds me. She has defied all the labels that life has given her: orphan, rape victim, slave, refugee. She has instead created new ones. Survivor, Yazidi leader, women’s advocate. Nobel Peace Prize nominee. And now, as of today, Goodwill ambassador. I am proud to know you Nadia, and I am sorry that we have failed you. I hope that your appointment today can be a turning point for all victims of sexual violence in human trafficking. And to those who thought that in their acts, they could destroy you, let them know this: Nadia Murad’s spirit is not broken and her voice will not be silenced, because as of today, Nadia is the United Nations ambassador who will speak for survivors all over the world.”

FP6 Aung San Suu Kyi, Official translation of the speech delivered by State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on the opening day of the Union Peace Conference - 21st Century Panglong, Naypyidaw, Myanmar, August 31, 2016.

Acquired at http://www.statecounsellor.gov.mm/en/node/247 (accessed 15th Novemeber 2016)

“May I begin by wishing the honoured guests and delegates present here today at this opening ceremony of the Union Peace Conference-21st Century Panglong, and all those who are with us in spirit, peace of mind and the realisation of all aspirations that will bear wholesome fruit. This hall is not only filled with guests and delegates who value and cherish peace, it is overflowing with the hopes of friends and well-wishers from across the globe, and the longings and dreams of our people. To fulfil these hopes and to turn these dreams into reality is a huge responsibility. But huge is not to say heavy. A responsibility that is borne to keep faith with those who loved our country and have departed this world, without having known the incomparable joys of peace throughout the land; to affirm our compassion for our people, who are today suffering from lack of peace; as evidence of our love for the generations to come who will have to bear the burden of our legacies, both good and bad; such a responsibility can never be too heavy. This is a unique opportunity for us to accomplish a great task that will stand as a landmark throughout our history. Let us grasp this magnificent opportunity, with wisdom, courage, and perseverance, and create a future infused with light. If all those who play a part, however big or small, in the peace process, cultivate the wisdom to reconcile differing views for the good of the people, the courage to accept ideas and practices that deserve to be accepted, and the perseverance to continue until difficulties are overcome, we will surely be able to build the democratic federal Union of our dreams. Since its inception it has been the aim of the National League for Democracy to hold political negotiations based on the Panglong spirit and the principle of finding solutions through the guarantee of equal rights, mutual respect, and mutual confidence between all ethnic nationalities. The government that emerged after the 2015 elections is determined to uphold these same principles. The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) is the first step not only towards peace, but towards the establishment of the long hoped for democratic federal Union. Some organisations have already signed the NCA, but there are also those that for various reasons have not yet signed. As future political dialogue needs to be based on the NCA, our new government has been making every effort to bring about the participation of the non-signatories. National reconciliation is the concern of all the peoples of our Union. National reconciliation must include reconciliation between the ethnic armed organizations in our country. Ideological differences between NCA signatories and non-signatories could delay our path to peace. We will strive to bring all under the umbrella of the NCA, which constitutes a common agreement, in order to avert misunderstandings and divisions. As the government that emerged following the 2015 general elections, we decided, in accordance with authority given to us by the electorate, to work towards lasting peace, for which our people have longed throughout the years. We are embarking on this journey towards peace with full confidence in the peoples of our Union. So long as we are unable to achieve national reconciliation and national unity, we will never be able to establish a sustainable and durable peaceful Union. Only if we are all united will our country be at peace. Only if our country is at peace will we be able to stand on an equal footing with the other countries in our region and across the world. To achieve our long-overdue peace we must engage in dialogue. We must negotiate. If we are to find solutions at the political negotiating table, we will need a framework that is accepted by all. When the political dialogue framework was being drafted in accordance with the NCA, we consistently urged for flexibility, keeping in mind the possible changes that might emerge in the political landscape following the elections. From the moment that we as a government began working on the peace process, we negotiated with the NCA signatories over the review of the political dialogue framework. At the same time, we also strived to bring the non-signatories into the framework review process. We have always believed that to be able to resolve the political problems that lie at the root of our armed conflicts, the most crucial requirement is to work together, with mutual understanding and trust, to seek solutions, The Panglong spirit that enabled us to implement, through unity and cooperation, the hopes of all our peoples for freedom, is equally essential now in the 21st century. If we are to achieve our shared objective of establishing a democratic federal Union, it is vital that we hold a 21st Century Panglong conference that will enable all our ethnic peoples to negotiate frankly, openly and on equal terms, as they did at the 20th Century Panglong conference. This is the vision that has led to our Union Peace Conference. As one of the first priorities of our government, we began preparations for today’s conference on 9th May 2016. We formed a preparatory committee, and we established the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre in place of the Myanmar Peace Centre (MPC). I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the previous government led by former President U Thein Sein, which established the MPC and worked for ceasefires. We will continue to build on the previous government’s work towards peace. We have re-formed the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) that was established in accordance with the NCA, and I have taken on the role of Chairperson. The UPDJC has since met twice. We have also convened one meeting of the Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting. We have met twice with the leaders of the NCA signatories’ peace process steering team. With regard to the non-signatories, we met the leaders of the UNFC in Yangon, and we met the leaders of the Wa Special Region 2 and Mongla Special Region 4 in Naypyidaw. Today’s conference was not organized by the government alone. We established a joint committee to enable this conference to be convened in a tripartite format, comprising: government, hluttaw and Tatmadaw as one group; ethnic armed organisations as one group; and political parties as one group. We all negotiated to enable the participation of both NCA signatories and non-signatories. Because we had a great deal of work to do to, some suggested that the conference date be delayed. But through everyone working together in a united effort, we have succeeded in holding this conference, which should have been held many, many years ago, here today. This experience has further strengthened the trust between all involved. Although there have been differences of view, it is because we have all strived to achieve our common goal-a successful 21st Century Panglong conference-that we are gathered here today. As you all know, our country has suffered from internal armed conflicts for more than half a century-almost 70 Years now. Over successive eras there have been attempts, through a variety of means, to end these conflicts. But for many reasons, peace has long remained a distant goal. We must draw lessons from the setbacks of the past, and join together at this time to write a new page in our history. At this moment, all the people across our country are watching with great trepidation. Ethnic peoples in the areas of our country where there is not yet peace are awaiting expectantly the outcome of this conference. Many, of all ages, have had to flee their homes to avoid conflict, and it is long since their hopes have dimmed. They hardly dare to hope any longer. We must not forget their plight. Today, as a way of resolving political problems through political means, we have started along the path to lasting peace through the 21st Century Panglong Conference. Not only Myanmar, but the whole world, is watching to see how far we can go, and whether we can succeed in achieving lasting peace. Whether we shall be able to fulfil the hopes and dreams of our peoples depends on all the leaders who are present here today. Yet peace cannot be achieved without the involvement of all groups in society. Civil society organizations have long played an important and active role in this country, including in our ethnic states. We pay tribute to all those who have strived so hard already to bring about peace and prosperity for all our peoples across the country. In particular, I am always impressed by the energy and enthusiasm of our young people, many of whom have been showing their support for this Panglong conference in events around the country in recent days. No peace process can succeed without the support of the people. Peace is not something that leaders impose. It is not something than can be achieved only in a conference room. It requires the active involvement and support of all peoples. The people of this country have demonstrated time and again their unshakeable courage and determination to bring about a better future. I know that they will with to see their political leaders pursue difficult peace negotiations ahead with intelligence, courage and empathy. Our efforts are not primarily for the benefit of those in this room today. They are for the benefit of future generations, that they may live out their lives in peace and security, of body and of mind. Our future generations must no longer be scarred-physically and mentally-by conflict and by loss. With a durable peace, our country will flourish, our diversity will be cause for celebration, and our peoples can finally realise their true potential as the children of this Union. I would like to conclude by expressing my heartfelt thanks to all our people and our friends who have inspired us to pursue the path of peace, however hard. I am convinced that together we will be able to find the right answers that will enable us to makes our dreams come true. It has been said that “the dreamer who makes his dream come true is the lord of us all”. To be able to make the dreams of a whole country come true is to become truly the lords of ourselves. It was the aspiration of the founding fathers of our independent nation to win the right to shape the destiny of our country. Let us proudly exercise this right with a clear vision and strength of purpose, bound in unity and confidence. Thank you.”

FP7 Angela Merkel, Plenary Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the World Humanitarian Summit, Istanbul, Turkey, May 23, 2016.

Acquired at https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/EN/Reden/2016/2016-05-24-bkin-rede- whs.html;jsessionid=A1D97FE60675681A38E704BFBD0C2B53.s2t2?nn=393812 (accessed 10th August 2016)

“Secretary-General Ban, President Erdogan, Ladies and gentlemen, Conflicts and disasters cause immeasurable suffering and create new challenges for humanitarian assistance. The truth is that to this day we do not have a sustainable humanitarian system. Many people are thus following our meeting here in Istanbul very closely. For this reason, I would like to thank the UN Secretary-General for taking on this painful topic and, after carefully preparing the Summit, launching our efforts today. I would like to thank Turkey for its hospitality and for making it possible to hold this Summit here in Istanbul. What do we need? Firstly, we need a renewed global consensus on humanitarian principles. It is actually a disaster in itself that we have to talk about the need to respect international law. Nevertheless, we are seeing in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere that hospitals are being systematically bombed, health centres destroyed and doctors killed. Such actions are a flagrant breach of humanitarian principles. We must be successful in getting help to the places where it is needed. We must be successful in ensuring humanitarian work can be carried out on the ground. We must all work together to achieve this end. Secondly, the priority has to be to make aid function as smoothly as possible. We must not simply go from one situation to the next, from one disaster to the next. What we need is a cohesive system of humanitarian aid. Above all, we need those supporting humanitarian assistance to be reliable. Many a pledge is made without the money arriving in the project. That must change. Germany supports the proposal to increase the volume of the Central Emergency Response Fund to one billion US dollars. Also on the German side, we are going to spend more money on humanitarian assistance. We need operative crisis facilities and not just action when disaster strikes. Thirdly, we need to break new ground. We need to learn from one another here. Every time we need to identify and implement the most efficient and best methods. I would advocate that we also give insurance models a chance alongside classic financing, for example, insurance models connected to the risks associated with climate change or global epidemics. The advantage is that assistance can be given quickly. Those with an insurance claim are no longer perceived as people with their hand out but as people who have claims. Insurance models could thus really bring a turnaround. Fourthly, it is a matter of networking our activities. Prevention, development cooperation and implementing Agenda 2030 that was adopted last year have to go hand in hand. Today, monocausal explanations of conflicts are no longer valid. Conflicts have multiple causes – from climate change to hunger, civil war and many other factors. That is why we need to tackle the problem from different angles. And that is why the tools need to be dovetailed. Today the implementation of an inclusive system for global action is being launched to help people in need and to make clear: We all live on one planet, we all have one life, we all have the right to live this life sustainably and sensibly. That is why we need to give everyone opportunities. There are too many today who do not have these opportunities. Thank you very much for organising this Summit.”

FP8 Madeleine Albright, White House Address Commemorating International Women's Day, Washington, D.C., USA, March 8, 2010.

Acquired at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/madeleinealbrightinternationalwomensdayspeech.h tm (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Thank you very much....Thank you....Breaking the glass ceiling. Mr. President, and Madam First Lady -- dear Michelle -- distinguished guests: International Women's Day reminds us of a lesson that we have long since learned, but have not yet sufficiently put into practice. The lesson is grounded in principle, but also in experience. The principal is that the basic rights and dignity of women and girls should be accorded the same respect as that given to men and boys -- a principal endorsed over and over again by global conferences and covenants.

Our experience is that when women have the power to make our own choices, we will benefit because the chains of poverty can be broken, families grow stronger, environmental awareness deepens, and socially constructive values are more likely to be handed down to the young. This experience has been validated in the life of communities on every continent, and yet women remain in many parts of the globe an undervalued and underutilized human resource, as the President has just said.

This is not to say that women have trouble finding work. Often they do -- the vast majority of the work -- but don't own land, aren't taught to read, can't obtain credit, and don't get paid. Women have made great progress in obtaining legal recognition of their rights, but frequently, even when the laws on the books are just, the reality and homes -- in homes and villages is not. Appalling abuses are still being committed against women. And these include: domestic violence, dowry murders, coerced abortions, honored crimes, and the killing of infants simply because their born female. Some say, all this is cultural and there's nothing anybody can do about it. I say it's criminal and we each have an obligation to stop it. I have been in public life for more than three decades and have attended many events related to international women's rights. And in each, uplifting goals were announced. But our purpose today and tomorrow and throughout this century is not to articulate more promises but to achieve real breakthroughs by caring about each other, by lifting each other up, and by building an action network that stretches across every border of nation, race, background, and creed.

To illustrate, I'd like to offer a poem, written by the granddaughter of a community organizer from America's Midwest. Her name is Marge Piercy and the poem begins with questions: What can they do to you? Whatever they want. They can set you up, They can bust you, They can break your fingers, They can burn your brain with electricity, They can take your child. They can do anything and you can't stop them from doing. How can you stop them? Alone, you can fight, You can refuse, You can take what revenge you can, But they roll over you. But two people fighting back to back can cut through a mob. Two people can keep each other sane; can give support, conviction, love, hope.

Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge.

With four you can play bridge and start an organization.

With six you can rent a whole house, Eat pie for dinner with no seconds, And hold a fund raising party.

A dozen make a demonstration. A hundred fill a hall. A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter.

Ten thousand, power and your own paper. A hundred thousand, your own media. Ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time. It starts when you care to act, It starts when you do it again after they said no, And it starts when you say "We" and know whom you mean, And each day you mean one more.

As these words remind us, progress in women's rights occurs step by step, and each victory becomes a platform upon which the next may be built. Our shared task is to keep building until we've raised enough platforms high enough to transform the very horizons of the earth. And in that quest we invite everyone to help us and caution each that they cannot stop us. Thank you very, very much.”

FP9 Indira Gandhi, “What Educated Women Can Do”, at the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of The Indraprastha College For Women, New Delhi, India, November 23, 1974.

Acquired at http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/indira_gandhi_educated.html (accessed 15th July 2015)

“An ancient Sanskrit saying says, woman is the home and the home is the basis of society. It is as we build our homes that we can build our country. If the home is inadequate -- either inadequate in material goods and necessities or inadequate in the sort of friendly, loving atmosphere that every child needs to grow and develop -- then that country cannot have harm ony and no country which does not have harmony can grow in any direction at all. That is why women's education is almost more important than the education of boys and men. We -- and by "we" I do not mean only we in India but all the world -- have neglected women education. It is fairly rece nt. Of course, not to you but when I was a child, the story of early days of women's education in England, for instance, was very current. Everybody remembered what had happened in the early days. I remember what used to happen here. I still remember the days when living in old Delhi even as a small child of seven or eight. I had to go ou t in a doli if I left the house. We just did not walk. Girls did not walk in the streets. First, you had your sari with which you covered your head, then you had another shawl or something with which you covered your hand and all the body, then you had a white shawl, with which every thing was covered again although your face was open fortunately. Then you were i n the doli, which again was covered by another cloth. And this was in a family or community which did not observe purdah of any kind at all. In fact, all our social functions always were mixed functions but this was the atmosphere of the city and of the country. Now, we have got education and there is a debate all over the country whether this education is adequate to the needs of society or the needs of our young people. I am one of those who always believe that education needs a thorough overhauling. But at the same time, I think that everything in our education is not bad, that even the present education has produced very fine men and women, specially scientists and experts in different fields, who are in great demand all over the world and even in the most affluent countries. Many of our young people leave us and go abroad because they get higher salaries, they get better conditions of work. But it is not all a one-sided business because there are many who are persuaded and cajoled to go even when they are reluctant. We know of first class students, especially in medicine or nuclear energy for instance, they are approached long before they have passed out and offered all kinds of inducements to go out. Now, that shows that people do consider that they have a standard of knowledge and capability which will be useful any where in the world. So, that is why I say that there is something worthwhile. It also shows that our own ancient philosophy has taught us that nothing in life is entirely bad or entirely good. Everything is somewhat of a mixture and it depends on us and our capability how we can extract the good, how we can make use of what is around us. There are people who through observation can learn from anything that is around them. There are others who can be surrounded by the most fascinating people, the most wonderful books, and other things and who yet remain quite closed in and they are unable to take anything from this wealth around them. Our country is a very rich country. It is rich in culture, it is rich in many old traditions -- old and even modern tradition. Of course, it has a lot of bad things too and some of the bad things are in the society -- superstition, which has grown over the years and which sometimes clouds over the shining brightness of ancient thought and values, eternal values. Then, of course, there is the physical poverty of large numbers of our people. That is something which is ugly and that hampers the growth of millions of young boys and girls. Now, all these bad things we have to fight against and that is what we are doing since Independence. But, we must not allow this dark side of the picture which, by the way, exists in every country in the world. Even the most rich country in the world has its dark side, but usually other people hide their dark sides and they try to project the shining side or the side of achievement. Here in India, we seem to want to project the worst side of society. Before anybody does anything, he has to have, of course, knowledge and capability, but along with it he has to have a certain amount of pride in what he or she is doing. He has to have self-confidence in his own ability. If your teacher tells, "You cannot do this," even if you are a very bright student I think every time you will find, it will be more and more difficult for you to do it. But if your teacher encourages saying, "Go along you have done very good work, now try a little harder," then you will try a little harder and you will be able to do it. And it is the same with societies and with countries. This country, India, has had remarkable achievements to its credit, of course in ancient times, but even in modern times, I think there are a few modern stories, success stories, which are as fascinating as the success story of our country. It is true that we have not banished poverty, we have not banished many of our social ills, but if you compare us to what we were just about 27 years ago, I think that you will not find a single other country that has been able to achieve so much under the most difficult circumstances. Today, we are passing through specially dark days. But these are not dark days for India alone. Except for the countries which call themselves socialist and about which we do not really know very much, every other country has the same sort of economic problems, which we have. Only a few countries, which have very small populations, have no unemployment. Otherwise, the rich countries also today have unemployment. They have shortages of essential articles. They have shortages even of food. I do not know how many of you know that the countries of Western Europe and Japan import 41 per cent of their food needs, whereas India imports just under two per cent. Yet, somehow we ourselves project an image that India is out with the begging bowl. And naturally when we ourselves say it, other people will say it much louder and much stronger. It is true, of course, that our two per cent is pretty big because we are a very big country and we have a far bigger population than almost any country in the world with the exception of China. We have to see and you, the educated women, because it is great privilege for you to have higher education, you have to try and see our problems in the perspective of what has happened here in this country and what is happening all over the world. There is today great admiration for certain things that have happened in other countries where the society is quite differently formed, where no dissent is allowed. The same people who admire that system or the achievements of that system are the ones who say there is dictatorship here even though, I think, nobody has yet been able to point out to me which country has more freedom of expression or action. So, something is said and a lot of people without thinking keep on repeating it with additions until an entirely distorted picture of the country and of our people is presented. As I said, we do have many shortcomings, whether it is the government, whether it is the society. Some are due to our traditions because, as I said, not all tradition is good. And one of the biggest responsibilities of the educated women today is how to synthesise what has been valuable and timeless in our ancient traditions with what is good and valuable in modern thought. All that is modern is not good just as all that is old is neither all good nor all bad. We have to decide, not once and for all but almost every week, every month what is coming out that is good and useful to our country and what of the old we can keep and enshrine in our society. To be modern, most people think that it is something of a manner of dress or a manner of speaking or certain habits and customs, but that is not really being modern. It is a very superficial part of modernity. For instance, when I cut my hair, it was because of the sort of life that I was leading. We were all in the movement. You simply could not have long hair and go in the villages and wash it every day. So, when you lead a life, a particular kind of life, your clothes, your everything has to fit into that life if you are to be efficient. If you have to go in the villages and you have to bother whether your clothes are going to be dirty, then you cannot be a good worker. You have to forget everything of that kind. That is why, gradually, clothes and so on have changed in some countries because of the changes in the life-style. Does it suit our life-style or what we want to do or not? If it does, maybe we have to adopt some of these things not merely because it is done in another country and perhaps for another purpose. But what clothes we wear is really quite unimportant. What is important is how we are thinking. Sometimes, I am very sad that even people who do science are quite unscientific in their thinking and in their other actions -- not what they are doing in the laboratories but how they live at home or their attitudes towards other people. Now, for India to become what we want it to become with a modern, rational society and firmly based on what is good in our ancient tradition and in our soil, for this we have to have a thinking public, thinking young women who are not content to accept what comes from any part of the world but are willing to listen to it, to analyse it and to decide whether it is to be accepted or whether it is to be thrown out and this is the sort of education which we want, which enables our young people to adjust to this changing world and to be able to contribute to it. Some people think that only by taking up very high jobs, you are doing something important or you are doing national service. But we all know that the most complex machinery will be ineffective if one small screw is not working as it should and that screw is just as important as any big part. It is the same in national life. There is no job that is too small; there is no person who is too small. Everybody has something to do. And if he or she does it well, then the country will run well. In our superstition, we have thought that some work is dirty work. For instance, sweeping has been regarded as dirty. Only some people can do it; others should not do it. Now we find that manure is the most valuable thing that the world has today and many of the world's economies are shaking because there is not enough fertilizer -- and not just the chemical fertilizer but the ordinary manure, night-soil and all that sort of thing, things which were considered dirty. Now it shows how beautifully balanced the world was with everything fitted in with something else. Everything, whether dirty or small, had a purpose. We, with our science and technology, have tried to -- not purposely, but somehow, we have created an imbalance and that is what is troubling, on a big scale, the economies of the world and also people and individuals. They are feeling alienated from their societies, not only in India but almost in every country in the world, except in places where the whole purpose of education and government has to be to make the people conform to just one idea. We are told that people there are very happy in whatever they are doing. If they are told to clean the streets, well, if he is a professor he has to clean the streets, if he is a scientist he has to do it, and we were told that they are happy doing it. Well, if they are happy, it is alright. But I do not think in India we can have that kind of society where people are forced to do things because we think that they can be forced maybe for 25 years, maybe for 50 years, but sometime or the other there will be an explosion. In our society, we allow lots of smaller explosions because we think that that will guard the basic stability and progress of society and prevent it from having the kind of chaotic explosion which can retard our progress and harmony in the country. So, I hope that all of you who have this great advantage of education will not only do whatever work you are doing keeping the national interests in view, but you will make your own contribution to creating peace and harmony, to bringing beauty in the lives of our people and our country. I think this is the special responsibility of the women of India. We want to do a great deal for our country, but we have never regarded India as isolated from the rest of the world. What we want to do is to make a better world. So, we have to see India's problems in the perspective of the larger world problems. It has given me great pleasure to be with you here. I give my warm congratulations to those who are doing well and my very good wishes to all the others that they will also do much better. This college has had a high reputation but we must always see that we do better than those who were there before us. So, good luck and good wishes to you.”

FP10 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Harvard Commencement remarks (as prepared for delivery), Massachusetts, USA, March 11, 2011.

Acquired at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/05/text-of-ellen-johnson-sirleafs- speech/ (accessed 15th July 2015)

“President Drew Gilpin Faust, members of the Harvard Board of Overseers, members of the Harvard Corporation, faculty, staff and students, fellow alumni, members of the graduating Class of 2011, parents, family and friends, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, friends: I am honored not only to be the 360th Commencement speaker at my alma mater, but to do so in the year Harvard University celebrates 375 years of preparing minds as the oldest institution of higher learning in America. Thank you for the invitation and congratulations to you, Dr. Faust, the first female president of Harvard! It is a great privilege to share in Harvard’s distinguished and storied history. Harvard has produced presidents, prime ministers, a United Nations secretary-general, leaders in business, government, and the church. But more than anything, Harvard has produced the men and women on whose talent our societies function — the leaders in law, health, business, government, design, education, spirituality, and thought. An event four decades ago put me on the path that has led me to where I am today. I participated, as a junior official of Liberia’s Department of Treasury, in a national development conference sponsored by our National Planning Council and a team of Harvard advisers working with Liberia. My remarks, which challenged the status quo, landed me in my first political trouble. The head of the Harvard team, recognizing, in a closed society, the potential danger I faced, facilitated the process that enabled me to become a Mason Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. The Mason Program provided me with the opportunity to study a diversified curriculum for a master’s degree in public administration. Perhaps more importantly, in terms of preparation for leadership, the program enabled us to learn and interact with other Fellows and classmates who represented current and potential leaders from all continents. I engaged, thrilled to be among the world’s best minds, yet overwhelmed by the reality of being a part of the world’s most prestigious institution of learning. As a result, I did things that I should have done, like studying hard, going to the stacks to do the research for the many papers and for better knowledge of the history of my country. I notice a few blank stares — evidence of the generation gap — so let me explain: the stacks contained books, which people used to write, and other people used to read, before Google Scholar was created. I also did things that I should not have done, like exposing myself to frostbite when I joined students much younger than I to travel by bus to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. It is difficult to imagine achieving all that I have, without the opportunity to study at Harvard. It is, therefore, for me a profound honor to be counted as an alumna. I salute my fellow graduates who share that rich heritage of academic excellence and the pursuit of truth. In preparation for this Address, I was pleasantly surprised to learn how far back Liberia’s connection to Harvard goes. The establishment of the Liberia College (now the University of Liberia) in 1862, the second-oldest institution of higher learning in West Africa, was led and funded by the Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia. Simon Greenleaf, the Harvard College law professor who drafted Liberia’s Independence Constitution of 1847, was the founder and president of the Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia. The first Liberian graduate of Harvard did so in 1920, and since then there has been a steady trail of Liberians to Cambridge. Most of them returned home to pursue successful careers. Thank you, Harvard, and thank you to the many Mason Program professors, dead and alive, for the compliments you paid when my papers and interventions were top rate, and for the patience you showed when I struggled with quantitative analysis. The self-confidence, sometimes called arrogance, that comes from being a Harvard graduate can also lead one down a dangerous path. It did for me. One year after my return from Cambridge, I was at it again, in a Commencement Address at my high school alma mater. I questioned the government’s failure to address long-standing inequalities in the society. This forced me into exile and a staff position at the World Bank. Other similar events would follow in a life of in and out of country, in and out of jail, in and out of professional service. There were times when I thought death was near, and times when the burden of standing tall by one’s conviction seemed only to result in failure. But through it all, my experience sends a strong message that failure is just as important as success. Today I stand proud, as the first woman president of my country, Liberia. This has allowed me to lead the processes of change, change needed to address a long-standing environment characterized by awesome challenges: a collapsed economy, huge domestic and external debt arrears, dysfunctional institutions, destroyed infrastructure, poor regional and international relationships, and social capital destroyed by the scourge of war. After election, I moved quickly in mobilizing our team, sought support from partners, and tackled the challenges. In five years, we formulated the laws and policies and strategies for growth and development. We removed the international sanctions on our primary exports; introduced and made public a cash-based budget; increased revenue by over 400 percent; and mobilized foreign direct investment worth 16 times the size of the economy when I assumed office. We built a small and professional army and coast guard, and moved the economy from negative growth to average around 6 percent. We have virtually eliminated a $4.9 billion external debt, settled a large portion of international institutional debt, as well as domestic arrears and suppliers’ credit. We restored electricity and pipe-borne water, lacking in the capital for two decades; reconstructed two modern universities and rural referral hospitals; constructed or reconstructed roads, bridges, schools, training institutions, local government facilities, and courts throughout the country; established and strengthened the institutional pillars of integrity; decentralized education by establishing community colleges; brought back the Peace Corps; and mobilized financial and technical resources from U.S. foundations, sororities, and individuals for support of programs aimed at the education of girls, the empowerment of adolescent youth, and improved working conditions for market women. Nevertheless, the challenges for sustained growth and development remain awesome. Our stability is threatened by the thousands of returnees from U.S. prisons and regional refugee camps, the bulk of whom are lacking in technical skills. Our peace is threatened by the challenging neighborhood where we live: two of our three neighbors have either experienced, or narrowly avoided, civil war in the past year, and we patiently host their refugees, since not even a decade ago it was they who hosted so many of us. Implementation of our economic development agenda is constrained by low implementation and absorptive capacity, which means that we are not constrained by funding alone. Plans to enhance performance in governance move slower than desired due to long-standing institutional decay and a corrupted value system of dishonesty and dependency. The development of infrastructure is constrained by the high capital cost of restoration, brought about by the lack of maintenance and exacerbated by wanton destruction over two decades of conflict. Yet, today, we are proud that young Liberian children are back in school, preparing themselves to play a productive part in the new Liberian society. Our seven-year-olds do not hear guns and do not have to run. They can smile again. We can thus say with confidence that we have moved our war-torn nation from turmoil to peace, from disaster to development, from dismay to hope. And it was the Liberian women who fought the final battle for peace, who came, their number and conviction the only things greater than their diversity, to demonstrate for the end to our civil war. I am, therefore, proud to stand before you, humbled by the success in representing the aspirations and expectations of Liberian women, African women, and, I dare to say, women worldwide. Today I stand equally proud, as the first woman president of our African continent, a continent that has embraced the process of change and transformation. I am proud that Liberia became a beacon of hope in Africa. With few notable exceptions, Africa is no longer a continent of countries with corrupt big men who rule with iron fists. It is no longer the Dark Continent in continual economic free fall, wallowing in debt, poverty and disease. When he addressed the Ghanaian Parliament in 2009, President Barack Obama reminded the people of Africa that it would no longer be the great men of the past who would transform the continent. The future of all of our countries is in the hands of the young people, people like you, Obama said, “brimming with talent and energy and hope, who can claim the future that so many in previous generations never realized.” While many challenges persist, times have changed and the world you enter today, graduates of the Class of 2011, is much more accountable than the one we faced. At the beginning of this year, 17 elections were scheduled across our continent. In 1989, there were three democracies in sub-Saharan Africa; by 2008, there were 23. That is progress. This is a significant improvement from the days when violent overthrows were the default means of transition. A clear example stands out in West Africa. Although they did not get as much focus as postelection violence in Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Guinea proved exemplary where the military oversaw democratic elections, turned power over to the civilian government, and returned to the barracks. In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union recognized a nonincumbent as the legitimate winner. That, again, is progress. We also see evidence of this progress in the African economy, which has been growing at more than 5 percent over the past decade. A recent African Development Bank report measured the rise of the middle class in Africa, totaling 313 million out of 1 billion Africans. The countries experiencing exceptional growth in their middle class include Ghana, Mozambique, Mali, Tanzania, Cape Verde, Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Rwanda. This middle class is changing the face of Africa. We are moving away from dependence on extractive industries and agriculture. There is a rising consumer class that helped brace Africa during the global economic crisis. This is emblematic not only of the progress in purchasing power in Africa, but in the progress that means you can still put food on the table for your family when the rains fail, that you can engage intelligently in political debates and hold your leaders accountable. Instability and years of conflict in Liberia have pushed us to the bottom of this table in terms of the size of our middle class. We stubbornly refuse to accept this and are preparing a new development agenda that aims, through proper allocation of our natural resources, to graduate Liberia from development assistance in 10 years, and propels us to a middle-income country by 2030. As Africa charts its economic path, we are taking advantage of South-South partnerships as China, India, and Brazil, not to mention Nigeria and Ghana, become more significant partners in our economic expansion. Their experience is closer to ours, and our cooperation going forward will be crucial. Even as the African renaissance appears on course, we must recognize that some of this progress is driven by the same forces of commodity demand that led to temporary gains four decades ago. We are the source of raw materials, now to India and China as well as the Western world, yet we generate the least profits from these exhaustible resources. Moreover, we remain vulnerable to external price shocks and receive very little transfer of technology, or growth in related industries. Until we begin to make products to sell, build better road and rail systems, and improve the easy movement of people and goods across our borders; until we supply the engineers and geologists and marketers of our resources, our middle class will remain stunted. In spite of these needs, and the fundamental economics of resource extraction, everywhere I travel in Africa, I see signs of a continent rising. We are producing more, manufacturing more, trading more, and cooperating more. Words like accountability, transparency, and reform are not just the calling card of some foreign donor; they are the words that must adjudicate closed-door decisions for those governments in Africa that seek re-election. There is a growing consensus on these issues, giving me great optimism about the future of Africa’s common economy and democratic prospects. I am excited about Africa’s future, and more so about Liberia’s future. In a few months, the Liberian people will have the opportunity to select their political leadership. This means that Liberia will know a second peaceful democratic transition in six years: this in a country that was riven by political rivalries, tribalism, and civil war for two decades. It is, nonetheless, with cautious optimism that we approach this event and the future. Anxieties remain because we know that as impressive as Liberia’s rebirth has been, our achievements remain fragile and reversible. I have no personal anxieties, however, for in a decades-long career in public service, I have learned many lessons that I can share with you today. In my journey, I have come to value hope and resilience. As an actor in Liberia’s history as it has unfolded over the last 40 years, I have seen these characteristics come full circle. I was there in the early ’70s, a decade after the independence movement had swept across Africa. Back then, the future appeared full of endless possibilities. Then across the continent there was a gradual descent into militarism, sectarian violence, and divisive ethnic politics. But I have been blessed with the opportunity to watch and participate as not only my nation but other African countries rise out of the ashes of war. With cautious optimism, it is my hope that I will continue to lead Liberia to consolidate and realize the dividends of peace. As much as I have lived and experienced, what you graduates will know and do will far exceed it. History, it seems, is speeding up. After graduation, you leave the relative security, predictability, and certainty of these walls for a world full of uncertainties. Across the globe, entire societies are being transformed, new identities forged, and national stories retold. People your age across the world are becoming increasingly vocal about how they are governed and by whom. Old templates of control have been overturned as States struggle internally with issues about national character and destiny. People who, heretofore, had no say in those conversations are asserting themselves and taking a place at the table, with or without an invitation. Ten years ago, information about the tragic events of September 11 came to us mainly through traditional media: radio, television, and … cnn.com. There was no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter and all the other social networking sites that my grandchildren now take for granted. In the intervening 10 years, young people like yourselves have gone on to use technology to improve the overall quality of life and created wealth. In those 10 years, the world has become smaller and more connected. The complex financial instruments of 10 years ago would seem quaint to the hedge funds and investment banks of today. In those 10 years, our markets and economies have become more connected and adjusted faster. Just six months ago, the Tunisian revolution began, leading rapidly and inexorably to fundamental change across North Africa and the Middle East. Could this have happened without digital social media, or without heightened correlation of food prices across time and space? Could this have happened just 10 years ago, with the same preconditions but a different degree of connectivity? Can you imagine what the next 10 years will bring? The next 50? In the time even before Friendster succumbed to Facebook, our world went through phases of transformation, and Harvard graduates, students, faculty, and commencement speakers have been key actors, writers, and chroniclers of those changes. In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall stood in this very Yard before a graduating class such as this one to announce the plan to salvage Europe after the devastation caused by the Second World War: He began, “I need not tell you, gentlemen, (I don’t know where the ladies were) that the world situation is very serious. But to speak more seriously” — Marshall said as he went on to advocate the well-known Marshall Plan. In time, we saw a rebounded Europe, and the subsequent rise of East Asia, have been the catalyzing forces behind Africa’s own recent progress. When President John F. Kennedy, another Harvard graduate, spoke to this audience in 1956 as the junior senator from Massachusetts, he analyzed the tension between politicians and intellectuals. Of the politicians, Kennedy said, “We need both the technical judgment and the disinterested viewpoint of the scholar, to prevent us from becoming imprisoned by our own slogans.” In newly democratic societies, where ballots are marked with distinctive icons as well as names since many voters remain illiterate, the danger of sloganeering political populism is only greater, and can lead down the road of war, not just bad policy choices. Kennedy, of course, would go on to launch the Peace Corps, which has impacted the lives of millions throughout the world by bringing Americans across the ocean, teaching students and training teachers, and making our world a smaller place. Ralph Ellison, speaking at the 1974 Commencement, told the graduates and alumni: “Let us not be dismayed, let us not lose faith simply because the correctives we have set in motion, and you have set in motion, took a long time.” Ellison believed that despite the challenge, the chance for national regeneration was there. In the more recent past, Bill Gates, a famous Harvard attendee, has made our world smaller still by having all of us speak the same dialect, by connecting us electronically and opening doors that just one generation ago seemed to belong to the realm of science fiction. Today, because of him, we are closer to living in a global village. With the election of Harvard graduate Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States, the face of American politics has been altered for good. In the sea change that his election represents, let me remind you, America, that Liberia has you beat on one score: We elected our first female president, perhaps 11 years before the United States might do so. Today, I share more than a Harvard background with you. In a way, this is also a commencement year for me. Just as you end one journey today and begin the next, so too do I in November. As my first term as the president of Liberia comes to an end, I will be standing for re-election. The person who claims to be the strongest opposition contender is a Harvard graduate. But I want you to know that the incumbent, who is also a Harvard graduate, is determined to win. The relationship between Harvard and Liberia is thus secured and in good hands! Harvard Graduates, Class of 2011: I urge you to be fearless about the future. Just because something has not been done yet, doesn’t mean it can’t be. I was never deterred from running for president just because there had never been any females elected head of state in Africa. Simply because political leadership in Liberia had always been a “boys’ club” didn’t mean it was right, and I was not deterred. Today, an unprecedented number of women hold leadership positions in our country, and we intend to increase that number. As you approach your future, there will be ample opportunity to become jaded and cynical, but I urge you to resist cynicism — the world is still a beautiful place and change is possible. As I have noted here today, my path to the presidency was never straightforward or guaranteed. Prison, death threats, and exile provided every reason to quit, to forget about the dream, yet I persisted, convinced that my country and people are so much better than our recent history indicates. Looking back on my life, I have come to appreciate its difficult moments. I believe I am a better leader, a better person with a richer appreciation for the present because of my past. The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough. If you start off with a small dream, you may not have much left when it is fulfilled because along the way, life will task your dreams and make demands on you. I am, however, bullish about the future of our world because of you. We share one defining characteristic that prepares us to transform our world — we are all Harvard University graduates. When we add to that the traditional quests for excellence for which we are known, there is no telling what we can accomplish. Go forth and embrace a future that awaits you. I thank you.”

MALE CELEBRITIES (marked as MC, standing for Male Celebrity): Pope Francis (MC1) – Argentinian, 266th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Patrick Stewart (MC2) – a British actor, Bono (MC3) - an Irish singer-songwriter, musician, George Clooney (MC4) - an American actor, screenwriter, producer, Bob Geldof (MC5) – an Irish musician, Sean Penn (MC6) – an American actor, Danny Glover (MC7) – an American actor, Jesse Williams (MC8) – an American actor, Ellie Wiesel (MC9) - a Romanian-born Jewish writer, professor, The 14th Dalai Lama (MC10) - the spiritual leader of Tibet.

MC1 Pope Francis, Address of the Holy Father, the United Nations Headquarters, New York, USA, September 25, 2015.

Acquired at http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/september/documents/papa- francesco_20150925_onu-visita.html (accessed 15th September 2016)

“Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good day. Once again, following a tradition by which I feel honored, the Secretary General of the United Nations has invited the Pope to address this distinguished assembly of nations. In my own name, and that of the entire Catholic community, I wish to express to you, Mr Ban Ki-moon, my heartfelt gratitude. I greet the Heads of State and Heads of Government present, as well as the ambassadors, diplomats and political and technical officials accompanying them, the personnel of the United Nations engaged in this 70th Session of the General Assembly, the personnel of the various programs and agencies of the United Nations family, and all those who, in one way or another, take part in this meeting. Through you, I also greet the citizens of all the nations represented in this hall. I thank you, each and all, for your efforts in the service of mankind. This is the fifth time that a Pope has visited the United Nations. I follow in the footsteps of my predecessors Paul VI, in1965, John Paul II, in 1979 and 1995, and my most recent predecessor, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in 2008. All of them expressed their great esteem for the Organization, which they considered the appropriate juridical and political response to this present moment of history, marked by our technical ability to overcome distances and frontiers and, apparently, to overcome all natural limits to the exercise of power. An essential response, inasmuch as technological power, in the hands of nationalistic or falsely universalist ideologies, is capable of perpetrating tremendous atrocities. I can only reiterate the appreciation expressed by my predecessors, in reaffirming the importance which the Catholic Church attaches to this Institution and the hope which she places in its activities. The United Nations is presently celebrating its seventieth anniversary. The history of this organized community of states is one of important common achievements over a period of unusually fast-paced changes. Without claiming to be exhaustive, we can mention the codification and development of international law, the establishment of international norms regarding human rights, advances in humanitarian law, the resolution of numerous conflicts, operations of peace-keeping and reconciliation, and any number of other accomplishments in every area of international activity and endeavour. All these achievements are lights which help to dispel the darkness of the disorder caused by unrestrained ambitions and collective forms of selfishness. Certainly, many grave problems remain to be resolved, yet it is also clear that, without all this international activity, mankind would not have been able to survive the unchecked use of its own possibilities. Every one of these political, juridical and technical advances is a path towards attaining the ideal of human fraternity and a means for its greater realization. I also pay homage to all those men and women whose loyalty and self-sacrifice have benefitted humanity as a whole in these past seventy years. In particular, I would recall today those who gave their lives for peace and reconciliation among peoples, from Dag Hammarskjöld to the many United Nations officials at every level who have been killed in the course of humanitarian missions, and missions of peace and reconciliation. Beyond these achievements, the experience of the past seventy years has made it clear that reform and adaptation to the times is always necessary in the pursuit of the ultimate goal of granting all countries, without exception, a share in, and a genuine and equitable influence on, decision- making processes. The need for greater equity is especially true in the case of those bodies with effective executive capability, such as the Security Council, the Financial Agencies and the groups or mechanisms specifically created to deal with economic crises. This will help limit every kind of abuse or usury, especially where developing countries are concerned. The International Financial Agencies are should care for the sustainable development of countries and should ensure that they are not subjected to oppressive lending systems which, far from promoting progress, subject people to mechanisms which generate greater poverty, exclusion and dependence. The work of the United Nations, according to the principles set forth in the Preamble and the first Articles of its founding Charter, can be seen as the development and promotion of the rule of law, based on the realization that justice is an essential condition for achieving the ideal of universal fraternity. In this context, it is helpful to recall that the limitation of power is an idea implicit in the concept of law itself. To give to each his own, to cite the classic definition of justice, means that no human individual or group can consider itself absolute, permitted to bypass the dignity and the rights of other individuals or their social groupings. The effective distribution of power (political, economic, defense-related, technological, etc.) among a plurality of subjects, and the creation of a juridical system for regulating claims and interests, are one concrete way of limiting power. Yet today’s world presents us with many false rights and – at the same time – broad sectors which are vulnerable, victims of power badly exercised: for example, the natural environment and the vast ranks of the excluded. These sectors are closely interconnected and made increasingly fragile by dominant political and economic relationships. That is why their rights must be forcefully affirmed, by working to protect the environment and by putting an end to exclusion. First, it must be stated that a true “right of the environment” does exist, for two reasons. First, because we human beings are part of the environment. We live in communion with it, since the environment itself entails ethical limits which human activity must acknowledge and respect. Man, for all his remarkable gifts, which “are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology” (Laudato Si’, 81), is at the same time a part of these spheres. He possesses a body shaped by physical, chemical and biological elements, and can only survive and develop if the ecological environment is favourable. Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity. Second, because every creature, particularly a living creature, has an intrinsic value, in its existence, its life, its beauty and its interdependence with other creatures. We Christians, together with the other monotheistic religions, believe that the universe is the fruit of a loving decision by the Creator, who permits man respectfully to use creation for the good of his fellow men and for the glory of the Creator; he is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it. In all religions, the environment is a fundamental good (cf. ibid.). The misuse and destruction of the environment are also accompanied by a relentless process of exclusion. In effect, a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged, either because they are differently abled (handicapped), or because they lack adequate information and technical expertise, or are incapable of decisive political action. Economic and social exclusion is a complete denial of human fraternity and a grave offense against human rights and the environment. The poorest are those who suffer most from such offenses, for three serious reasons: they are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the environment. They are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing “culture of waste”. The dramatic reality this whole situation of exclusion and inequality, with its evident effects, has led me, in union with the entire Christian people and many others, to take stock of my grave responsibility in this regard and to speak out, together with all those who are seeking urgently- needed and effective solutions. The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the World Summit, which opens today, is an important sign of hope. I am similarly confident that the Paris Conference on Climatic Change will secure fundamental and effective agreements. Solemn commitments, however, are not enough, although they are certainly a necessary step toward solutions. The classic definition of justice which I mentioned earlier contains as one of its essential elements a constant and perpetual will: Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius sum cuique tribuendi. Our world demands of all government leaders a will which is effective, practical and constant, concrete steps and immediate measures for preserving and improving the natural environment and thus putting an end as quickly as possible to the phenomenon of social and economic exclusion, with its baneful consequences: human trafficking, the marketing of human organs and tissues, the sexual exploitation of boys and girls, slave labour, including prostitution, the drug and weapons trade, terrorism and international organized crime. Such is the magnitude of these situations and their toll in innocent lives, that we must avoid every temptation to fall into a declarationist nominalism which would assuage our consciences. We need to ensure that our institutions are truly effective in the struggle against all these scourges. The number and complexity of the problems require that we possess technical instruments of verification. But this involves two risks. We can rest content with the bureaucratic exercise of drawing up long lists of good proposals – goals, objectives and statistics – or we can think that a single theoretical and aprioristic solution will provide an answer to all the challenges. It must never be forgotten that political and economic activity is only effective when it is understood as a prudential activity, guided by a perennial concept of justice and constantly conscious of the fact that, above and beyond our plans and programmes, we are dealing with real men and women who live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty, deprived of all rights. To enable these real men and women to escape from extreme poverty, we must allow them to be dignified agents of their own destiny. Integral human development and the full exercise of human dignity cannot be imposed. They must be built up and allowed to unfold for each individual, for every family, in communion with others, and in a right relationship with all those areas in which human social life develops – friends, communities, towns and cities, schools, businesses and unions, provinces, nations, etc. This presupposes and requires the right to education – also for girls (excluded in certain places) – which is ensured first and foremost by respecting and reinforcing the primary right of the family to educate its children, as well as the right of churches and social groups to support and assist families in the education of their children. Education conceived in this way is the basis for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and for reclaiming the environment. At the same time, government leaders must do everything possible to ensure that all can have the minimum spiritual and material means needed to live in dignity and to create and support a family, which is the primary cell of any social development. In practical terms, this absolute minimum has three names: lodging, labour, and land; and one spiritual name: spiritual freedom, which includes religious freedom, the right to education and all other civil rights. For all this, the simplest and best measure and indicator of the implementation of the new Agenda for development will be effective, practical and immediate access, on the part of all, to essential material and spiritual goods: housing, dignified and properly remunerated employment, adequate food and drinking water; religious freedom and, more generally, spiritual freedom and education. These pillars of integral human development have a common foundation, which is the right to life and, more generally, what we could call the right to existence of human nature itself. The ecological crisis, and the large-scale destruction of biodiversity, can threaten the very existence of the human species. The baneful consequences of an irresponsible mismanagement of the global economy, guided only by ambition for wealth and power, must serve as a summons to a forthright reflection on man: “man is not only a freedom which he creates for himself. Man does not create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature” (Benedict XVI, Address to the Bundestag, 22 September 2011, cited in Laudato Si’, 6). Creation is compromised “where we ourselves have the final word… The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any instance above ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves” (ID. Address to the Clergy of the Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone, 6 August 2008, cited ibid.). Consequently, the defence of the environment and the fight against exclusion demand that we recognize a moral law written into human nature itself, one which includes the natural difference between man and woman (cf. Laudato Si’, 155), and absolute respect for life in all its stages and dimensions (cf. ibid., 123, 136). Without the recognition of certain incontestable natural ethical limits and without the immediate implementation of those pillars of integral human development, the ideal of “saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war” (Charter of the United Nations, Preamble), and “promoting social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom” (ibid.), risks becoming an unattainable illusion, or, even worse, idle chatter which serves as a cover for all kinds of abuse and corruption, or for carrying out an ideological colonization by the imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which are alien to people’s identity and, in the end, irresponsible. War is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. If we want true integral human development for all, we must work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and peoples. To this end, there is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm. The experience of these seventy years since the founding of the United Nations in general, and in particular the experience of these first fifteen years of the third millennium, reveal both the effectiveness of the full application of international norms and the ineffectiveness of their lack of enforcement. When the Charter of the United Nations is respected and applied with transparency and sincerity, and without ulterior motives, as an obligatory reference point of justice and not as a means of masking spurious intentions, peaceful results will be obtained. When, on the other hand, the norm is considered simply as an instrument to be used whenever it proves favourable, and to be avoided when it is not, a true Pandora’s box is opened, releasing uncontrollable forces which gravely harm defenceless populations, the cultural milieu and even the biological environment. The Preamble and the first Article of the Charter of the United Nations set forth the foundations of the international juridical framework: peace, the pacific solution of disputes and the development of friendly relations between the nations. Strongly opposed to such statements, and in practice denying them, is the constant tendency to the proliferation of arms, especially weapons of mass distraction, such as nuclear weapons. An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are self-contradictory and an affront to the entire framework of the United Nations, which would end up as “nations united by fear and distrust”. There is urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the non-proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons. The recent agreement reached on the nuclear question in a sensitive region of Asia and the Middle East is proof of the potential of political good will and of law, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy. I express my hope that this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved. In this sense, hard evidence is not lacking of the negative effects of military and political interventions which are not coordinated between members of the international community. For this reason, while regretting to have to do so, I must renew my repeated appeals regarding to the painful situation of the entire Middle East, North Africa and other African countries, where Christians, together with other cultural or ethnic groups, and even members of the majority religion who have no desire to be caught up in hatred and folly, have been forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their cultural and religious heritage, their houses and property, and have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesion to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement. These realities should serve as a grave summons to an examination of conscience on the part of those charged with the conduct of international affairs. Not only in cases of religious or cultural persecution, but in every situation of conflict, as in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan and the Great Lakes region, real human beings take precedence over partisan interests, however legitimate the latter may be. In wars and conflicts there are individual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die. Human beings who are easily discarded when our response is simply to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements. As I wrote in my letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 9 August 2014, “the most basic understanding of human dignity compels the international community, particularly through the norms and mechanisms of international law, to do all that it can to stop and to prevent further systematic violence against ethnic and religious minorities” and to protect innocent peoples. Along the same lines I would mention another kind of conflict which is not always so open, yet is silently killing millions of people. Another kind of war experienced by many of our societies as a result of the narcotics trade. A war which is taken for granted and poorly fought. Drug trafficking is by its very nature accompanied by trafficking in persons, money laundering, the arms trade, child exploitation and other forms of corruption. A corruption which has penetrated to different levels of social, political, military, artistic and religious life, and, in many cases, has given rise to a parallel structure which threatens the credibility of our institutions. I began this speech recalling the visits of my predecessors. I would hope that my words will be taken above all as a continuation of the final words of the address of Pope Paul VI; although spoken almost exactly fifty years ago, they remain ever timely. I quote: “The hour has come when a pause, a moment of recollection, reflection, even of prayer, is absolutely needed so that we may think back over our common origin, our history, our common destiny. The appeal to the moral conscience of man has never been as necessary as it is today… For the danger comes neither from progress nor from science; if these are used well, they can help to solve a great number of the serious problems besetting mankind (Address to the United Nations Organization, 4 October 1965). Among other things, human genius, well applied, will surely help to meet the grave challenges of ecological deterioration and of exclusion. As Paul VI said: “The real danger comes from man, who has at his disposal ever more powerful instruments that are as well fitted to bring about ruin as they are to achieve lofty conquests” (ibid.). The common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic. This common home of all men and women must also be built on the understanding of a certain sacredness of created nature. Such understanding and respect call for a higher degree of wisdom, one which accepts transcendence, self-transcendence, rejects the creation of an all-powerful élite, and recognizes that the full meaning of individual and collective life is found in selfless service to others and in the sage and respectful use of creation for the common good. To repeat the words of Paul VI, “the edifice of modern civilization has to be built on spiritual principles, for they are the only ones capable not only of supporting it, but of shedding light on it” (ibid.). El Gaucho Martín Fierro, a classic of literature in my native land, says: “Brothers should stand by each other, because this is the first law; keep a true bond between you always, at every time – because if you fight among yourselves, you’ll be devoured by those outside”. The contemporary world, so apparently connected, is experiencing a growing and steady social fragmentation, which places at risk “the foundations of social life” and consequently leads to “battles over conflicting interests” (Laudato Si’, 229). The present time invites us to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society, so as to bear fruit in significant and positive historical events (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 223). We cannot permit ourselves to postpone “certain agendas” for the future. The future demands of us critical and global decisions in the face of world-wide conflicts which increase the number of the excluded and those in need. The praiseworthy international juridical framework of the United Nations Organization and of all its activities, like any other human endeavour, can be improved, yet it remains necessary; at the same time it can be the pledge of a secure and happy future for future generations. And so it will, if the representatives of the States can set aside partisan and ideological interests, and sincerely strive to serve the common good. I pray to Almighty God that this will be the case, and I assure you of my support and my prayers, and the support and prayers of all the faithful of the Catholic Church, that this Institution, all its member States, and each of its officials, will always render an effective service to mankind, a service respectful of diversity and capable of bringing out, for sake of the common good, the best in each people and in every individual. God bless you all. Thank you.”

MC2 Patrick Stewart, “Violence on women”, Amnesty international, London, UK, December 2009.

Acquired at http://www.shakesville.com/2009/12/relevant-youtubery-patrick-stewart.html (accessed 15th July 2015)

“I was a child during a time when domestic violence against women was a shameful secret. Everybody knew about it, everyone knew where it was happening, but nobody was doing anything about it. And within the immediate family circle, it was so shameful and embarrassing an aspect of your home life that no one wanted it exposed or discussed. The end result was that it continued, and there was no attempt, either from the authorities, or within the community itself, to diminish it. I experienced first-hand violence against my mother, from an angry and unhappy man, who was not able to control his emotions, or his hands. And the harm done by those events, of course the physical harm, the physical scars that were left, the blood that was shed, the wounds that were exposed, were a shocking pain. But, there are other aspects of violence, which have more lasting impacts; psychologically on family members it is destructive—destructful and tainting. As a child witnessing these events, one cannot help somehow feeling responsible for them. For the pain, and the screaming, and the misery. And it is deeply confusing and those confusions are not things which are easily disposed of in adult life—they stay with you, and you are given—the child is given—a very bad lesson in male responsibility and self-control. And I know that in my own life, in the past, I have had issues in relationships with women in my life, which have a history in the experiences I had as a child, in my own home. It is a worldwide phenomena, and in places, in countries, of a much more severe and destructive form than anything I experienced, and that’s one of the reasons why the campaign, which Amnesty International is spearheading, to bring people’s attention to domestic violence is so important, because it is here among us, and it is certainly in the world at large. So far as the authorities are concerned, there have been great advances, and there needed to be. Because as a child, I heard police officers in my home say, “Well, she must have provoked him.” And I heard doctors who came to treat my mother say, “Well, Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.” They had no idea. Today we are much more sensitive to these issues, but not sensitive enough. Still these things are hushed up. Still people don’t talk about them. Still the violence is allowed to continue. And one way in which this deeply troubling element in modern life can be opposed is through government intervention. I would like to see our government taking as seriously issues of violence against women—and these issues are huge, because here in the UK, almost 50 percent of all adult women claim that they have been the victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, or stalking. So I would like to see these issues taken as seriously by the government as quite properly they take issues of drunk driving, violence against minors, and their smoking campaigns.”

MC 3 Bono, Remarks by Bono to Labour Party Conference, Brighton, UK, September 29, 2004.

Acquired at http://www.atu2.com/news/transcript-of-bonos-speech-at-labour-party- conference.html (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Thank you. My name is Bono and I'm a rock star. Brighton -- rock -- star. Excuse me if I appear a little nervous. I'm not used to appearing before crowds of less than 80,000 people. I heard the word party -- obviously got the wrong idea. I've been here in Brighton before...March 13, 1983. That time I had the greatest rock band on the stage behind me, they looked a little different from you. I think I was climbing the PA stacks, waving a white flag...and yes, I had a mullet from the '80s. We played a song called "Out of Control," and yes sometimes I am! It must have been at that point when a young Tony Blair stroked his chin and said, "Someday, when I come to lead this great land, I must have this man address my party conference."

Well, 20 years later, here we are. I've come because Prime Minister Blair asked me. He might well regret it. In the larger sense, I'm here as part of a journey that began in 1984-85, with Band Aid and Live Aid. Another very tall, grizzled rock star, my friend Sir Bob Geldof, issued a challenge to "feed the world."

It was a great moment, it changed my life.

That summer, my wife Ali and I went to Ethiopia, on the quiet, to see for ourselves what was going on. We lived there for a month, working at an orphanage. The locals knew me as "Dr. Good Morning." The children called me "The Girl With the Beard." Don't ask.

But let me say this -- Africa is a magical place. And anybody who ever gave anything there got a lot more back. A shining shining continent, with beautiful royal faces...Ethiopia not just blew my mind, it opened my mind.

On our last day at the orphanage a man handed me his baby and said: "take him with you." He knew in Ireland his son would live; in Ethiopia his son would die. I turned him down.

In that moment, I started this journey. In that moment, I became the worst thing of all: a rock star with a cause.

Except this isn't a cause. 6,500 Africans dying a day of treatable, preventable disease -- dying for want of medicines you and I can get at our local chemist -- that's not a cause, that's an emergency.

That's why I'm here today. You know, I could make the soft argument for action -- or I could make the more muscular one. The soft argument you've all heard before. People are dying over there, needlessly dying, at a ridiculous rate and for the stupidest of reasons: money. They're dying because they don't have a pound a day to pay for the drugs that could save their lives. Pound or Euro, they really don't care. There are hard facts that make up the soft argument. This soft, moral case I know you understand.

And if you're already converted, you don't need me preaching at you. Though I must admit I enjoy it. So let me make the other, more muscular argument.

I know you can take it. You're Labour, aren't you? You're tough. Keir Hardie was a tough guy, wasn't he? Down the pits at the age of 11. Clement Attlee was tough, right: fought in the Great War, worked in the slums. Blair, Brown, they're tough guys. The Labour Party has never been a garden party, has it. I mean the reddest of roses has thorns. Let's get real here on a couple of things -- let's get to some uncomfortable truths. Let's be clear about what this problem is and what this problem isn't. Firstly, this is not about charity, it's about justice.

Let me repeat that:

This is not about charity, this is about justice. And that's too bad.

Because you're good at charity. The British, like the Irish, are good at it. Even the poorest neighbourhoods give more than they can afford.

We like to give, and we give a lot. But justice is a tougher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

Because there's no way we can look at Africa -- a continent bursting into flames -- and if we're honest conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Anywhere else. Certainly not here. In Europe. Or America. Or Australia, or Canada.

There's just no chance. You see, deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We've got watering cans; when what we really need are the fire brigades. That's the first tough truth. The second is that to fight AIDS, and its root cause, the extreme poverty in which it thrives, it's not just development policy. It's a security strategy.

The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty, I didn't say that, Colin Powell said that. And when a military man from the right starts talking like that maybe we should listen! Because maybe, today, these are one and the same.

People get nervous when I talk like this. I get nervous when I talk like this. But in these distressing and disturbing times, surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them.

Can I just say that again? Surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them.

Africa is not the frontline on the war against terror. But it could be soon. Justice is the surest way to get to peace.

So how are we doing, on this other war, that will affect so many many more lives than the war I read about every day.

Well, I'm going to tell you what I think, but you're probably better off asking an economist. An NGO. An African farmer.

In fact, anyone but a rock star. I mean, get yourself a source you can trust -- one who, say when he hears the word "drugs," probably thinks "life-saving," rather than "mind-altering."

Let's just say that when the government sends a fact-finding mission somewhere in the world, there's probably a good reason they don't send a delegation of rock stars.

But actually, I can see through these goggles. I know progress when I see it. And I know forward momentum when I feel it. And I do feel it.

There is a lot for Britain to get excited about. And with that in mind, I want to say a few words about two remarkable men.

Like a lot of great partners, they didn't always get along as the years passed. They didn't always agree. They drifted apart. They did incredible things on their own, as individuals. But they did their best work as a pair. I love them both: John Lennon...and Paul McCartney.

I'm also fond of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They are kind of the John and Paul of the global development stage, in my opinion. But the point is, Lennon and McCartney changed my interior world -- Blair and Brown can change the Real World. And that's why I'm here.

You know as transcendent as I'd like to think a U2 show can be, it isn't life or death. This is. And I've met people whose lives will depend on the decisions taken by these two great men. They have great ideas. And the promises they have already made will save hundreds of thousands of lives -- if they follow through, and you don't let them forget who they are.

Don't let them forget who they are, promise me that, conference. Growing up in Dublin in the Seventies, I didn't think much of politics, and I thought even less of politicians. I had no idea they worked as hard as they do. I had no idea what it takes to make good on your ideals.

Hillary Benn is doing a great job, with big shoes to fill. I'd like to thank Clare Short, for letting me in. The Chancellor's spending review showed me this is a serious moment in time.

And the IFF, what a brilliant idea. The Prime Minister's Africa Commission. This can be a radical landmark -- like the Brandt report -- certainly if Bob Geldof has his way, and it's hard not to give him his way. The Irish, don't you love them? Anyway, what I'm telling you is 2005, when Britain takes the reins of the G-8 and EU, this is it. And if we don't get there in 2005 -- if we don't get there in 2005 -- I know where these people park their cars.

Listen, this is a real moment coming up, this could be real history, this could be something that your children, your children's children, that our whole generation, will be remembered for at the beginning of the 21st century. Putting right a relationship that has been so very wrong for so very long. The North, the South, the have nots, the have yachts.

Britain is in a unique position here. I know you've got a chequered past. I'm Irish, let's not go there. Forget the plundering of Empire, I wont even bring it up...

You have real relationships in these places -- real relationships -- right across the developing world.

You could be the interface -- there's a 21st century thought for you, -- interface -- as opposed to just-in-your-face -- between the worlds of the haves and the-have-nothing-at alls.

But Empire aside, we have to accept that even people with short memories are not sure they like the look of us.

In certain quarters of the world, Brand U.K., Brand EU not to mention Brand USA -- are not their shiniest.

They're in real trouble. The neon sign is fizzing and crackling a bit, isn't it? The storefront's a little grubby. Our regional branch managers are getting nervous. Let's cut the crap.

The problems facing the developing world afford us in the developed world a chance to redescribe ourselves in very dangerous times. This is not just heart -- it's smart.

Onerous debt burdens, decreasing aid levels, duplicitious trade rules, no wonder people are pissed off with us.

Listen, I know what this looks like, rock star standing up here, shouting imperatives others have to fulfill. But that's what we do, rock stars. Rock stars get to wave flags, shout at the barricades, and escape to the South of France. We're unaccountable. We behave accordingly. But not you. You can't. You can't do that.

See, we're actually counting on you. Politicians have to make the fight, do the work, and get judged by the results.

The weight of expectation is a heavy burden. Hang it on a rock band and that's usually when they make a crap album. The weight of history is so heavy. It's a huge responsibility to be the repository of people's dreams, to be their hope for the future. So Tony...Gordon...I don't envy you. Because there's a lot of work to do.

There is progress, but it's incremental. History never notices that, and the lives that are depending on it don't deserve the wait.

You know we made a promise to half poverty by the year 2015 -- a big millennium promise -- but we're not even going to make it by 2115.

It's not enough to describe Everest, we've got climb it and we've got to bring everyone else along. George, Jacques, Silvio, Gerhardt, Paul, Junichiro -- they've all got to come up the hill.

Because this is the big year, 2005. All of you have to double aid, double its effectiveness, and double trouble for corrupt leaders.

The G8 -- people look at these meetings and wonder whether they ever achieve anything. I stood in Cologne, with how many thousands of people. We got that announcement on debt cancellation which now means that three times as many children in Uganda are going to school.

Finish what you started in Cologne. Thank you for last weekend, Gordon. And trade. Our badge of shame. We in the rich countries shuffle the poorest into a backroom, tie their hands and feet with our conditionalities and then use our subsidies to deliver the final blow.

We have to reform the CAP, and we have to let democratically elected governments -- not the IMF, not the World Bank, not the WTO, not the EU -- decide what policies work best.

We can't fix every problem, but the ones we can we must. But it's going to cost you. Justice, equality, these ideas aren't cheap.

They're expensive -- I know that.

And while I'm sure you care about education in Africa, I know you also care about schools at home. You care about AIDS clinics in Africa, but there's a hospital right down the road you're not sure you can get in.

These are hard choices. And I'm probably the wrong person to ask you to make them.

And I know that on certain issues this room is already divided. I know many people -- and I include myself -- were very unhappy about the war in Iraq. Still are. But ending extreme poverty, disease and despair -- this is one thing everybody can agree on.

These efforts can be a force not only for progress but for unity -- not only in Labour but around the world.

Can you take this from a rockstar, "All You Need is Love" when all you need are groceries. Now you know why Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are really excited that U2's got a new album coming out -- why?

Because I'll be away on tour next year. But even from a tour bus I can be a pain in the arse. That's my job. And I've got some very interesting friends, there's as many of them in mothers unions as trade unions.

It's not just purple Mohawks we've got going, it's blue rinses.

It's the Temperance League of Tunbridge Wells.

The Wigan Bowling Society. The Chipping Camden Ladies Cricket Club. OK, I made those up. But don't mess with us. As I say, next year, 2005, Great Britain is on the door at the EU and G-8. So this is the time to unlock something really big. Excuses? Horseshit.

Earlier I described the deaths of 6,500 Africans a day from a preventable treatable disease like AIDS: I watched people queuing up to die, three in a bed in Malawi.

That's Africa's crisis. But the fact that we in Europe or America are not treating it like an emergency -- and the fact that its not every day on the news, well that is our crisis.

And that's not horseshit, that's something much worse, I don't even know what that says about us. There will be books written.

Think about it. Think about who you are, who you've been, who you want to be.

I don't care if you are Old Labour or New Labour, what is your party about if it's not about this -- if it's not about equality, about justice, the right to make a living, the right to go on living?

Simply agreeing with us is not enough.

If Britain can't turn its values into action against extreme, stupid poverty... if this rich country, with the reins in its hands, can't lead other countries along this path to equality, then the critics tomorrow will be right:

I am Tony Blair's apologist. The rock star pulled out of the hat at the Labour Party Conference. I've more faith in the room than that. I've more faith in your leaders than that. I don't need to have. I'm an Irish rockstar. It looks much better on me to slag you off.

But let me say this again. For the last time. We're serious, this is gigantic. This stuff is the real reason to be in politics, to go door to door, to organise and demonstrate and take bold action. It's every bit as noble as your grandparents fighting the Nazis.

This is not about "doing our best." It's win or lose. Life or death. Literally so. If I could ask you to think a hundred years ahead, to imagine what we, and our times, will be remembered for, I would venture three things: the Internet, the war on terror, and the fate of the continent of Africa.

We are the first generation that can look extreme and stupid poverty in the eye, look across the water to Africa and elsewhere and say this and mean it: we have the cash, we have the drugs, we have the science -- but do we have the will?

Do we have the will to make poverty history? Some say we can't afford to. I say we can't afford not to. Thanks for listening.”

MC4 George Clooney, Address at the United Nations Security Council on Darfur, New York, USA, September 14, 2006.

Acquired at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/georgeclooneyunitednations.htm (accessed 25th July 2015)

“Well, first I want to thank Ambassador Bolton and all of you for inviting us here today and taking the time to talk with us. I'll make you two promises: The first is that I'll be brief; and the second is that I won't try to educate you on the issues of Darfur and the regions around it. There's nothing I can say that you don't already know. You know the numbers. You know the urgency. And you know how bad this is likely to get. I'm here to represent the voices of the people who cannot speak for themselves. And from our side, we're not so naive either. We know how difficult a task this is. We understand how many issues are in front of you this moment, each needing great care and attention. But you are the U.N. and this is a task that you have been given. You have to decide what's most urgent. You have responsibility to protect. In the time that we're here today, more women and children will die violently in the Darfur region than in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, or Lebanon. The United States has called it "genocide." For you it's called "ethnic cleansing." But make no mistake: It is the first genocide of the 21st century. And if it continues unchecked it will not be the last. Now, my job is the come here today and to beg you on behalf of the millions of people who will die -- and make no mistake; they will die -- for you to take real and effective measures to put an end to this. Of course it's complex, but when you see entire villages raped and killed, wells poisoned and then filled with the bodies of its villagers, then all complexities disappear and it comes down to simply right and wrong. It's not getting better. It's getting much, much worse. And it is only the international community that can help us. Now, I know there are members of you here that, for what I'm sure are sensible reasons, have failed to use leverage at times to keep the -- to get the peacekeepers on the ground. Well, we now have a date. The date is September 30th. The 1st of October will leave these people with nothing. Whatever the reason, it's not good enough. On October 1st, it won't just be the Janjaweed murdering and raping with impunity or Minnawi's SLA slaughtering the Fur tribes. With no protection, all the aide workers will leave immediately, and the two and a half million refugees who depend on that aid will die. Jan Egeland estimates 100,000 a month. So, after September 30th, you won't need the U.N. You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones. In many ways, it's unfair, but it is, nevertheless, true that this genocide will be on your watch. How you deal with it will be your legacy, your Rwanda, your Cambodia, your Auschwitz. We were brought up to believe that the U.N. was formed to ensure that the Holocaust could never happen again. We believe in you so strongly. We need you so badly. We've come so far. We're -- We're -- We're one "yes" away from ending this. And, if not the U.N., then who? Time is of the -- of the essence. I'm going to give this over to Professor Wiesel. And I'm going to thank you again for your time.”

MC5 Bob Geldof, Keynote address by Sir Bob Geldof (F.R.G.S.), at the launch of FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition, at the Royal Geographical Society, London, UK, June 2, 2016.

Acquired at https://www.humancondition.com/freedom-launch-bob-geldof-keynote- address/ (accessed 15th September 2016)

“I’m here mainly because Jeremy quotes me extensively from one of my more obscure records, so thank you Jeremy for being the sole person in the world to actually purchase that record and delve into the mysteries of my genius. The other reason why I’m here is because Jeremy takes Laurens van der Post and E.O. Wilson as benchmarks in his job as a biologist in trying to work out what’s going on. And what is going on, particularly now, is this stalling of the 21st Century that has yet to really splutter into action. We seem to be suffering some dreadful hangover from that most murderous and suicidal of centuries, the 20th century. Woody Allen puts it absolutely perfectly, in his usual mordant way, ‘More than any other time in history mankind faces a crossroads. Down one path leads despair and utter hopelessness, down the other total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.’ And I feel that more than ever, more than ever. All of us probably travel a lot. Certainly Tim [Macartney-Snape] has just arrived from Kathmandu yesterday, Jeremy [Griffith] pitched up from Australia a couple of days ago. I suppose many people here travel all the time. I’ve never felt the world more threatening, more fractious, more fissiparous, more febrile, more fucked up than it is now. And I’m 64. And there seems to be a compulsion amongst human beings that when things just get too much, too tense, then why not just engage in a bit of bloodletting. My auntie Fi Fi was 106 at the beginning of the year and then she died. And I asked her when she was still compos mentis at the age of 103, did she feel any tensions within the Geldof household prior to the First World War; she was a little girl, but nonetheless I remembered the great tensions in Dún Laoghaire with my Dad pressed to the radio to hear the latest on the Cuban Missile Crisis and when I asked him what was up, he said ‘there may be a war’, and I said ‘when?’, he said ‘tomorrow’. And it was that close. Do I feel that now? No, not that close. But not bad, not far from there. There’s something very amiss, and we need now to think. Humans have that great capacity, a capacity that Jeremy believes at some level bedevils us, but ultimately will be the answer to whatever it is that seems to trouble us. And right now that seems to be a question. Within the last year we have had books like Sapiens by [Yuval] Noah Harari, or Matt Ridley’s Evolution of Everything, which tries to work out what is it that led to this pass? And we’ve been at that pass before. 100, 200 years ago, one afternoon in Waterloo, we came to an end of a period of economic and political development and a new one had to begin, but only through this massive bloodletting. And in one afternoon, more boys killed than in a week of the Somme. We can’t perhaps picture it now, but it was 200 years ago. And so the 19th Century began, in 1815. One hundred years later we did have the battle of the Somme and again many millions of men and women died that week and so the 20th Century could bring itself into being and the industrial age began and thus what followed with a new polity, with a new economy, the suicide of a culture, mass dying and the hangover into the 21st Century, which we’re now suffering and which we’ll be asked to partially resolve in a couple of weeks in this country when people are asked to participate in a great new political experiment called The European Union which has kept us stable, if not at peace. And should Britain be the thread, the loose thread, that is pulled on the EU cardigan, then, believe me, my view is that sooner rather than later we will find ourselves in some sort of conflict again. Because the Balkans are still febrile, the Baltic states in terror of that revanchist thug in Russia, who is sitting there waiting for this to happen. And then that ancient pull to the south of the French, and to the east of the Germans, will begin to spark again. We mustn’t let that happen and I for one will never vote for my grandchildren even possibly going to war, never. And although the Prime Minister perhaps overstated it a couple of weeks ago, nonetheless, as Margaret Thatcher said in 1975, ‘We will see war in Europe unless we engage together.’ And in essence that is what Jeremy is coming to. If you want to reduce it to a single nub, we developed, in the early stages, self-consciousness, which is my belief, and we [Jeremy and I] argued with this over the phone the other week, is the nub of the problem. No other animal, as much as we can determine, has got self-consciousness. Once we understand ourselves and the Cartesian notion, ‘I think, therefore I am’, then you begin to unravel many of the things that animate us. But that also allows us to think. And the other ability that we developed as sapiens, as Harari points out, was empathy. And he goes into why should that have developed and Ridley goes into that even more so, and Griffith goes into it even more extensively, why did we develop this notion? In Ridley’s case, he says that was the singular item that allowed us to overwhelm the Neanderthal man, with a bigger brain. But our ability to have empathy and to think outside the individual, to act together and to imagine other worlds, that imaginative process was the thing that allowed us to breathe. Jeremy says, in effect, we’ve lost that, the imagination to understand what it is, we have to be the difference between the selfish orientated genetic animal driven thing and the nerve endings of the human brain. This is the great divide and we are completely conflicted between them. Maybe, maybe not. But we need Griffith’s, we need Ridley’s, we need Harari’s. We need as much thinking as humanly possible these days. The world has gone beyond its capacity to renew itself. Human consumption by the year 2100, that’s not far away, that’s in my grandchildren, if not my children’s lifetimes, will have increased by 1200%. We’ve reduced the idea of an economy to the single word ‘more’, more of what? Of everything. He [Jeremy] quotes, unfortunately he quotes me, but even more unfortunately, my smaller, fatter, Irish pop star friend Bono even more extensively which negates all his arguments immediately! I quote The Eagles, everything, all the time. Seems to be where we’re at. And if all our personal circumstances are bound up in our personal happiness it’s hard not to ask of life and the planet more than it has to give. And we are at that stage. That’s not hippie stuff, that’s where we are at. We are consuming far too much stuff. ‘More’ is a euphemism for the word ‘greed’. And yet 2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day. It’s not possible ladies and gentleman to live on less than two dollars a day. It makes immense sense to rid ourselves of poverty. It rids us of war, nearly all wars are resource wars. Even Hitler had to invent Lebensraum, there wasn’t enough space for people. Echoes of that go around the European argument today. We just constantly repeat ourselves. Jeremy quotes me in one of his articles as saying that we were ensnared by the paradigm of the 20th Century which had to be competition and the resulting mayhem. Well ladies and gentlemen, this new thing that we all have in our pockets, this vital invention dreamt up by that genius British scientist in Switzerland only 25 years ago, the World Wide Web, has completely altered the economy and therefore the polity but the polity hasn’t changed so we are stuck in this limbo of change and that’s why thinkers are coming to the fore to posit new ways forward. But the thing in your pocket, the thing that he is typing into there, means a different kind of society, it means a sort of hive society where we are constantly connecting, where we are constantly touching antlers together. It must mean something completely different. What, we don’t know. But within weeks the economy was changing when the Web became commonly available. Think Gutenberg 1468. All this guy wanted to do was print a few more leaflets and make a few shillings. But within 25 years the old polity was destroyed and a new economy had come into place, literature was invented, 100 years later we had Shakespeare. He didn’t mean that! But you had the democratisation of knowledge, you had the crash of the secret societies and their coded languages of religion and law, etc. The Web is Gutenberg times six billion. Something new is going to come out of this, but what? It’s not Instagram and SnapChat and all that bullocks. It seems to me that the world is so serious Jeremy that we must engage in trivia to distract ourselves from a bleak reality. And I’m not some Jeremiad or some Cassandra, it’s just you must feel it you people here [in the audience], you must feel it? And therefore if there is new thinking, or new ideas, from a scientist, from a biologist, from a man who has used his life on almost quixotic expeditions to find Tasmanian Tigers, but to prove they live or don’t live, that they exist or they don’t exist, to prove it, to be a scientist, then you have to pay attention to a person who thinks about what a genius like van der Post has considered which influences us, and the way we live and the way we think. And the other influences around us. We are at a critical pass. 1815, 1915, 2016. It ain’t working. And we don’t need to go down the well trodden paths of the human past and our recent histories, our parents’ histories. That brilliant generation fought for freedom and then utterly bankrupt decided that they would provide a healthy, educated population fit for a newer world, a newer century. It is not up to my generation to betray that and therefore we need to think, we need new ideas, we need proselytisers, we need obsessed people, which I think Jeremy is. We need him to be questioned. We need it [FREEDOM] to be argued, we need it to be read and talked about and understood. It may be right, it may be wrong. But you need someone as committed to trying to understand what gets us here time after time. We must be better than that. We have to be better than that. Sometimes I read a quote from a 1950s mountaineer, a Scottish mountaineer, and I’m not going to read it now but it was sent to me in the middle of Live Aid. I was scared stiff, I thought I was out of my depth, well out of my depth, I was this pop singer from Dún Laoghaire, and I was talking to Margaret Thatcher, or I would call Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch would come on the phone or whatever, and I thought ‘this is going to fail’. Daily it was failing, daily. And of course I was scared for the personal failure but that was as nothing than the failure towards those for whom we were doing it. Well it got done but I was on TV most nights urging people on. And a guy wrote to me, I was getting a lot of ‘Bob Geldof, England’ letters, most of which were very nice but I’d put in the bin. In fact, I got one from Nepal, not from Kathmandu [referring to Tim Macartney-Snape who had just arrived from Kathmandu] and it was addressed to ‘Bob Geldof, c/- Her Majesty The Queen, Buckingham Palace, London’! Because that was the only address he knew! And it came opened, ‘Sorry for opening this Sir Bob, it was addressed to you.’ It was a sweet letter, I kept that one. And the other letter I kept was from this chap who saw me and he said ‘You looked very tired last night and very scared’ and he said ‘I hope I’m wrong but I think I’m right but in a different way “I’ve been there”’. He said ‘I happened to be reading this book by this chap and there was a passage in there where we wrote about the idea of commitment, that if you do anything you commit yourself utterly to it and once that Rubicon moment has been crossed then all sorts of events happen around it to help you.’ And that is true. You know it in your own relationships, you know it in your own jobs, you know it in your life. It’s to do with that essence about, of a commitment to it. At the end of it he had this quote from Goethe, the great German poet, and Goethe says ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it’, and that is true. And Ladies and Gentleman, in my life, never before have we needed genius, magic and power more; and the word I’d add to that is thought and thinking. I should end there because that’s the upside isn’t it?! Fuck it! Bizarrely Jeremy wanted me to speak for an hour and he’d do 10 minutes. It was absolutely ridiculous. He wrote the book, half of it is so dense I couldn’t plough through it, so I just got the essence and I called him up and I said ‘Why am I doing an hour? You’re the scientist, you can put empiricism and study behind this idea you have.’ The people of the RGS [Royal Geographical Society], I’m proud to be a Fellow, I love this building [sniffing], it smells of intelligence and ancient-ness and books [referencing the room], excellent, I love it. And I said ‘It is the RGS, you come here to listen to the great thinkers, the great architects, the great scientists, you come here to debate with them, and to go out into the London streets alive with ideas’. I don’t have any bloody ideas, I just moan all the time. And so he [Jeremy] has the ideas, and he said ‘Are you sure?’ I said ‘Yeah, get Snape, he’s a bloody mountaineer, he’s halfway up K2 at the moment, get him to come down and do this and you talk to these thinking people.’ That is why I love the RGS. You talk to these thinking people, they may agree, they may disagree, but you know it and you’ll have set some little spark alight to make them think afresh and think differently. He did it with me, I hope he does it with you right now, ladies and gentleman, Jeremy Griffith.”

MC6 Sean Penn, Peace Summit Award Acceptance Speech “Haiti, Systemic Moral Corruption, A Sacred Debt”, at the Twelfth Annual Nobel Peace Laureate's World Summit, Chicago, USA, April 25 2012.

Acquired at http://www.indiewire.com/2012/04/sean-penns-peace-summit-award-acceptance- speech-haiti-systemic-moral-corruption-a-sacred-debt-181693/ (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Thank you President Gorbachev and Mr. Udo Janz. I would like to express my deep appreciation to the Nobel Peace Laureates and the Permanent Secretary of the World Summit for this very special honor. And thanks to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the people of Chicago. Terry Mazzany and the Chicago Community Trust, my friend Kerry Kennedy and the RFK Center, Olivier Francois and The Chrysler group and all the co-chairs and sponsors. I also must acknowledge the U.S. State Department, and my friends, Lieutenant General Ken Keen, US Army, former Haitian President Rene Preval, Dennis Kucinich, Jean-Max Bellerive and Council General Lesly Conde. Most importantly, I want to thank my hero … my son Hopper and daughter Dylan, and my Mom and brother Michael who are here today. I once travelled to visit with a Masai tribe off the beaten tourist track in Tanzania. I remember being moved and impressed…even delighted, that such a wholly untouched and unchanged culture could still exist, and that I wished it to continue. I also remember expressing that wish to my guide and his reply was “Don’t wish that for them. Any culture that remains static…will die.” Sometimes the truth is counterintuitive. In a globalized world those of us who would assert our own intuition, conditioned by the luck of birth to a country of relative choice, freedom, security, comfort and for some…even luxury – is an assertion of intuition, not unlike that of a big game hunter, who boasts his love of nature with the mounted heads of once proud creatures on his wall. In truth we are often blinded, both on the right and the left, by our own political and mono-cultural romance with endless struggle, and all too often the temporary luxury of our division and detachment allow and propagate that endless struggle to be lived out for us by vicarious assault on those less fortunate. But here’s the good news. When our self interested bickering and self righteous dismissal of compromise among ourselves are exposed, our failure to sacred human debts leave, in the case of Haiti, nine million ancestors of a singular and heroic slave rebellion on their knees, in a half-life of poverty, despair, corruption and death, we have an OUT. An excuse. We blame Haiti. We cry corruption. We who watched Exxon post an $11 billion profit in just its first quarter of last year. Never fear, these words are not intended to decry all those who work in the oil industry, nor one to put this speaker apart in consumption, but simply the acknowledgement of a stranglehold where both legal lobbying and systemic moral corruption from an industry whose poisons leak not only from tankers and rigs, but virtually paralyze the arteries of our own governments and leave us with little place to use the cries of corruption as excuse for inaction at home or abroad. This summit in Chicago and the great expansion of Speak Truth To Power is a tribute to the belief that the Nobel Laureates and the RFK Center have in young people, in students. Often pundits will say, what do students know? What do young people know? As they will say, what does an actor know? What does a musician know? Well…I knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? When I bought a full-page in the Washington Post to print a letter to then President Bush asking him to exercise wisdom prior to pre-emptive invasion of that country. I was called a traitor. So, I’m here to say, what do we know? We know how to smell a rat. And we know that relying on the credibility of The New York Times proved it couldn’t do the same. And we know that without our action, no President no matter how brilliant, talented, courageous or well intended will ever succeed alone in pushing through health care and education policies to even civil results. We know that we are citizens. In the United States, only 25% of our fellow citizens have ever left our shores, visited another country or have the passports to do so. Fewer and fewer have the means. I have had the great privilege to visit many countries. Most recently, a country and its people I have grown to love. It would take a POET Laureate to describe for you the courage and dignity of its people. When I am asked, why Haiti? Why do you believe Haiti suddenly has a chance to break the endless cycle of its own self-destruction and the active cycle of its exploitation by others? The war for quality of life can only be fought globally, and Haiti is a one and a half hour flight from Miami, one of the richest cities in the richest country the world has ever known. Against incredible odds and decades of dictators, interventions and heartbreak, and even after a devastating earthquake that killed 250,000 people in ten seconds, the Haitians rose up and democratically elected a president of their own choosing, President Michel Martelly. And now, as he and his Prime Minister to-be current Foreign Minister Laurent Lamothe, take on the enormous task of leading reconstruction in a way that will at once sidestep institutionalized political sabotage, demonstrating earned momentum for the people, and, AT THE SAME TIME build up the very institutions of government being side-stepped, to carry on the people’s will through future administrations. Quite a task. But a do-able one. With investment in agriculture, education, healthcare, and housing. With clean water solutions, and recognizing it’s a country of 9 million people, but also…ONLY 9 million. We have a very short window in which to support THIS team of the Haitian people’s choosing. In these coming four years from today, they must have the support to demonstrate their vision that will improve quality of life, which at the moment is at an inhuman standard, and when I say inhuman, take a look at Cite Soleil sometime, where 240,000 Haitian men, women, and children following every LIGHT RAIN sleep in a black water solution of sewage and harbor toxins, garbage and pigs, where rape and gun violence is a daily occurrence. We have four years to solidify the seeding of institutions that can create sustainable democratic solutions. Four years that without a reinvigorated surge of support will leave the people’s will up for grabs. Now, you may begin to wonder about the emphasis that I’ve put on the support of outside governments and what the international private sector may give Haiti, and why I have not so emphasized how Haiti may support itself. President Martelly has got them covered on that one. He understands that the great majority of Haitians who support him have now had two years to rise from the immense trauma, the nearly biblical devastation and mourning. And he understands that there are no people on earth more willing to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. But we must understand that, as Martin Luther King said, “It is fine to tell a man to pull himself up by his own bootstraps, but evil to tell a man without boots to do so.” In these coming four years, we can provide those boots and the materials, the training, the institutional support that will allow Haiti to be again, that shining symbol of independence that it began as, and that so many around the world have benefited from, and been inspired by. You may also remember, that it was Haiti (motivations aside) to provide the deciding vote in the establishment of the State of Israel. And also, Haiti joining the call, today, for a Palestinian state. A sacred debt indeed. So…what would failure look like? And why does it matter to all of us? Well, there is the human cost of poverty, but if, on its own, that is not compelling, note that the increased instability that attrition may bring, to a Caribbean island an hour and a half from our shores, would well be an open invitation to a new explosion of narco trafficking, terrorist influence, and paramilitaries. This is not a polemic from a pundit nor a politician, nor one from a bleeding heart liberal, only sympathetic to needs outside his own country. I am a proud American citizen, an ever-aspiring pacifist, who nonetheless stands by my Commander-in-Chief’s support and leadership of the NATO mission in Libya, the US military and Central Intelligence Agency implementation of my Commander-in-Chief’s action against Osama Bin Ladin. I’ve had the opportunity to travel in Pakistan just three weeks ago and see through both U.S. and Pakistani eyes, the delicate balances of countries burdened by their possession of nuclear arms, suffering sectarian violence, and a front row seat to the enormity of the task of governance. All great cultural revolutions depend on great international partnerships. See President De Klerk and President Mandela. I’d like to join the Haitian diaspora in Florida in inviting Presidents Obama and Martelly to stand side by side in these next crucial months and years for both of our countries and the world. And while I am just one voice, I am one among so many who is smelling a rat these days. For the young people here today, I want to tell a quick story and then let everyone get on with their day. [OFF SCRIPT: Story about the Haitian Police Officer who had stepped outside of his home for a brief moment and during those minutes, the earthquake hit and his entire house was leveled, with his family still inside. As he dove into the rubble, all he could find was his police uniform, which he put on and proceeded to guide emergency traffic and save numerous lives. Take moment to encourage audience that they too can find the opportunity to “guide traffic” in their own lives.] What can you do? Help guide the traffic of care and involvement, of peace with whatever means at your disposal. I am honored to be among so many in this room and at this summit – honored that my friend, President Clinton, who has been such a great champion of Haiti, opened this Summit two days ago – and honored to accept this award on behalf of the Haitian people and all of those who on January 12, 2010 were lost, be they Haitian nationals, U.N. staff, NGO workers, or any in their families. And those whose memory was lost under the rubble that it is our job to remove and revive. And finally, to all those willing to do whatever it takes to make tomorrow just a little bit better. To peace. Thank you.”

MC7 Danny Glover, “State Execution: The Death Penalty in America”, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, November 5, 2001.

Acquired at http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/can-love-save-the-world/danny-glover-the- death-penalty-in-this-great-nation-of-ours (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Good evening. Tonight I would like to discuss with you a practice that separates the United States from every other country in the Western Hemisphere. This, of course, is the use of homicide as an official tool of the state, otherwise known as the death penalty. Since the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in the 1970s, 741 people have been executed in the United States. Unfortunately, as I give this speech, that number is climbing to 743, courtesy of the states of Georgia and Texas. And yet 98 people, or about one out of every seven executed, have walked off death row after new evidence emerged that proved their absolute innocence. Let me be very clear here. I am not talking about people whose sentences or convictions were overturned on what some might call a technicality. I am talking about actual innocence. Think about it. If one of every seven car tires sold in this country was subject to a blowout, if one of every seven chickens taken to market infected someone with salmonella, if one of every seven cars manufactured had a faulty engine that exploded every now and again, these things would be taken off the market. But for every seven people executed since 1976, one actually innocent person has been sent to death row. Yet the death penalty remains “on the market.” There are, of course, many reasons why I oppose the death penalty, in addition to the fact that I believe innocent people can be executed and in fact have been executed. I'd like to share with you some of these reasons. Many of you know I worked on the case of Gary Graham. Gary came from the fifth ward in Houston, Texas. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the robbery-murder of a shopping clerk. There are many things about Gary's case that are illustrative of the kind of problems caused by the death penalty. Number one: Gary was a juvenile when it was alleged he committed the crime for which he was convicted. Only five other countries are known to have executed children in the past decade— Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Yemen. But in the U.S., 13 states, including Texas, allow for the execution of people who commit crimes as juveniles. Number two: Gary was Black. Black people make up 12.1 percent of our nation's population— but comprise 43 percent of death rows across the United States. Racial disparities continue to define who lives and who dies under this punishment. Number three: Gary was convicted on the very shaky eyewitness testimony of one person. The Bible in the Book of Numbers says we shouldn't convict on the testimony of one eyewitness. But our courts say otherwise. Gary Graham was executed in the summer of 2000. His case pointed out then many problems the death penalty brings to our system of justice. Incompetent legal counsel, racial bias. The possibility—in this case the probability of innocence, the very issue of disproportionality—Gary probably would not have been executed if he was from a different state or if he had drawn a different prosecutor or a different jury. But the tide is turning. The very same tide that swept up Gary Graham and so many like him is now turning. It has been said that war is never the friend of social justice movements. When we fear, we clamp down on those who do not think like we think or do not look like we look. Since September 11th, we have seen our federal government incarcerate without trial or access to bail more than 1,000 people, mostly of Middle Eastern or Southern Asian descent. It is clearly a slippery slope we are on. We cannot be silent while such tactics are employed. We must stand vigilant and work onward and together toward abolition. Thank you.”

MC8 Jesse Williams, Acceptance Speech, BET’s Humanitarian Award Ceremony, Los Angeles, USA, June 26, 2016.

Acquired at http://time.com/4383516/jesse-williams-bet-speech-transcript/ (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Peace peace. Thank you, Debra. Thank you, BET. Thank you Nate Parker, Harry and Debbie Allen for participating in that. Before we get into it, I just want to say I brought my parents out tonight. I just want to thank them for being here, for teaching me to focus on comprehension over career, and that they make sure I learn what the schools were afraid to teach us. And also thank my amazing wife for changing my life. Now, this award – this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country – the activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do. It’s kind of basic mathematics – the more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize. Now, this is also in particular for the black women in particular who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you. Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to deescalate, disarm and not kill white people everyday. So what’s going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours. Now… I got more y’all – yesterday would have been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday so I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on 12 year old playing alone in the park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better than it is to live in 2012 than it is to live in 1612 or 1712. Tell that toEric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Dorian Hunt. Now the thing is, though, all of us in here getting money – that alone isn’t gonna stop this. Alright, now dedicating our lives, dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back for someone’s brand on our body when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies, and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies. There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven’t done. There is no tax they haven’t leveed against us – and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. “You’re free,” they keep telling us. But she would have been alive if she hadn’t acted so… free. Now, freedom is always coming in the hereafter, but you know what, though, the hereafter is a hustle. We want it now. And let’s get a couple things straight, just a little sidenote – the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander.That’s not our job, alright – stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down. We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil – black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is though… the thing is that just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real. Thank you.”

MC9 Elie Wiesel. “Perils of Indifference speech”, the Seventh Millennium Evening at the White House, Washington D.C., USA, April 12, 1999.

Acquired at http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/perils_of_indifference.htm (accessed 15th July 2015) “Mr president, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress,

Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends: Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe's beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald. He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never would be again.

Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw. And even if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also for their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what he needed to know—that they, too, would remember, and bear witness.

And now, I stand before you, Mr. President

Commander-in-Chief of the army that freed me, and tens of thousands of others—and I am filled with a profound and abiding gratitude to the American people.

Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being. And I am grateful to you, Hillary—or Mrs. Clinton—for what you said, and for what you are doing for children in the world, for the homeless, for the victims of injustice, the victims of destiny and society. And I thank all of you for being here.

We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations—Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin—bloodbaths in Cambodia and Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence, so much indifference.

What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.

What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

Of course, indifference can be tempting—more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest.

Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the "Muselmanner," as they were called. Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were, strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.

Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment than to be a victim of His anger. Man can live far from God—not outside God. God is wherever we are. Even in suffering? Even in suffering.

In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, have done something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor—never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees—not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps—and I'm glad that Mrs. Clinton mentioned that we are now commemorating that event, that period, that we are now in the Days of Remembrance—but then, we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did.

And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that Hitler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies.

If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction. They would have bombed the railways leading to Birkenau, just the railways, just once.

And now we knew, we learned, we discovered that the Pentagon knew, the State Department knew. And the illustrious occupant of the White House then, who was a great leader—and I say it with some anguish and pain, because, today is exactly 54 years marking his death— Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April the 12th, 1945, so he is very much present to me and to us.

No doubt, he was a great leader. He mobilized the American people and the world, going into battle, bringing hundreds and thousands of valiant and brave soldiers in America to fight fascism, to fight dictatorship, to fight Hitler. And so many of the young people fell in battle. And, nevertheless, his image in Jewish history—I must say it—his image in Jewish history is flawed.

The depressing tale of the St. Louis is a case in point. Sixty years ago, its human cargo— maybe 1,000 Jews—was turned back to Nazi Germany. And that happened after the Kristallnacht, after the first state sponsored pogrom, with hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned, thousands of people put in concentration camps. And that ship, which was already on the shores of the United States, was sent back.

I don't understand. Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart. He understood those who needed help. Why didn't he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people—in America, a great country, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. What happened? I don't understand. Why the indifference, on the highest level, to the suffering of the victims?

But then, there were human beings who were sensitive to our tragedy. Those non-Jews, those Christians, that we called the "Righteous Gentiles," whose selfless acts of heroism saved the honor of their faith. Why were they so few? Why was there a greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war?

Why did some of America's largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler's Germany until 1942? It has been suggested, and it was documented, that the Wehrmacht could not have conducted its invasion of France without oil obtained from American sources. How is one to explain their indifference?

And yet, my friends, good things have also happened in this traumatic century: the defeat of Nazism, the collapse of communism, the rebirth of Israel on its ancestral soil, the demise of apartheid, Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, the peace accord in Ireland. And let us remember the meeting, filled with drama and emotion, between Rabin and Arafat that you, Mr. President, convened in this very place. I was here and I will never forget it.

And then, of course, the joint decision of the United States and NATO to intervene in Kosovo and save those victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man whom I believe that because of his crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity. But this time, the world was not silent. This time, we do respond. This time, we intervene. Does it mean that we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far? Is today's justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr. President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents be allowed anywhere in the world? Will it discourage other dictators in other lands to do the same?

What about the children? Oh, we see them on television, we read about them in the papers, and we do so with a broken heart. Their fate is always the most tragic, inevitably. When adults wage war, children perish. We see their faces, their eyes. Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony? Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine. Some of them—so many of them—could be saved.

And so, once again, I think of the young Jewish boy from the Carpathian Mountains. He has accompanied the old man I have become throughout these years of quest and struggle. And together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.

I conclude on that.”

MC 10 Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, University Aula, Oslo, Norway, December 10, 1989.

Acquired at https://www.dalailama.com/messages/acceptance-speeches/nobel-peace- prize/nobel-peace-prize (accessed 15th September 2016)

“Your Majesty, Members of the Nobel Committee, Brothers and Sisters.

I am very happy to be here with you today to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. I feel honored, humbled and deeply moved that you should give this important prize to a simple monk from Tibet I am no one special. But I believe the prize is a recognition of the true value of altruism, love, compassion and non-violence which I try to practice, in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha and the great sages of India and Tibet. I accept the prize with profound gratitude on behalf of the oppressed everywhere and for all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace. I accept it as a tribute to the man who founded the modern tradition of non-violent action for change Mahatma Gandhi whose life taught and inspired me. And, of course, I accept it on behalf of the six million Tibetan people, my brave countrymen and women inside Tibet, who have suffered and continue to suffer so much. They confront a calculated and systematic strategy aimed at the destruction of their national and cultural identities. The prize reaffirms our conviction that with truth, courage and determination as our weapons, Tibet will be liberated. No matter what part of the world we come from, we are all basically the same human beings. We all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering. We have the same basic human needs and is concerns. All of us human beings want freedom and the right to determine our own destiny as individuals and as peoples. That is human nature. The great changes that are taking place everywhere in the world, from Eastern Europe to Africa are a clear indication of this.

In China the popular movement for democracy was crushed by brutal force in June this year. But I do not believe the demonstrations were in vain, because the spirit of freedom was rekindled among the Chinese people and China cannot escape the impact of this spirit of freedom sweeping many parts of the world. The brave students and their supporters showed the Chinese leadership and the world the human face of that great nation. Last week a number of Tibetans were once again sentenced to prison terms of upto nineteen years at a mass show trial, possibly intended to frighten the population before today's event. Their only 'crime" was the expression of the widespread desire of Tibetans for the restoration of their beloved country's independence. The suffering of our people during the past forty years of occupation is well documented. Ours has been a long struggle. We know our cause is just Because violence can only breed more violence and suffering, our struggle must remain non-violent and free of hatred. We are trying to end the suffering of our people, not to inflict suffering upon others.

It is with this in mind that I proposed negotiations between Tibet and China on numerous occasions. In 1987, I made specific proposals in a Five-Point plan for the restoration of peace and human rights in Tibet. This included the conversion of the entire Tibetan plateau into a Zone of Ahimsa, a sanctuary of peace and non-violence where human beings and nature can live in peace and harmony. Last year, I elaborated on that plan in Strasbourg, at the European Parliament I believe the ideas I expressed on those occasions are both realistic. and reasonable although they have been criticised by some of my people as being too conciliatory. Unfortunately, China's leaders have not responded positively to the suggestions we have made, which included important concessions. If this continues we will be compelled to reconsider our position.

Any relationship between Tibet and China will have to be based on the principle of equality, respect, trust and mutual benefit. It will also have to be based on the principle which the wise rulers of Tibet and of China laid down in a treaty as early as 823 AD, carved on the pillar which still stands today in front of the Jokhang, Tibet's holiest shrine, in Lhasa, that "Tibetans will live happily in the great land of Tibet, and the Chinese will live happily in the great land of China".

As a Buddhist monk, my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share. Although I have found my own Buddhist religion helpful in generating love and compassion, even for those we consider our enemies, I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion.

With the ever growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment. I believe all religions pursue the same goals, that of cultivating human goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings. Though the means might appear different the ends are the same.

As we enter the final decade of this century I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty- first century. I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human under-standing and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.

Thank you.”

MALE POLITICIANS (marked as MP, standing for Male Politician): David Cameron (MP1) - a British former Prime Minister, Barack Obama (MP2) - the former President of the USA, Oscar Sanchez (MP3) - a former President of Costa Rica, Nelson Mandela (MP4) - a late South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, Desmond Tutu (MP5) - is a South African social rights activist, Bill Clinton (MP6) - a former American President, George W. Bush (MP7) - a former American president Kofi Anan (MP8) - a Ghanaian diplomat, former Secretary-General of the UN, Tony Blair (MP9) - a former British Prime Minister, Ban Ki-moon (MP10) - the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations.

MP1 PM David Cameron, Speech at G8 Nutrition for Growth Summit, London, UK, June 8, 2013.

Acquired at https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-at-g8-nutrition-for-growth- event (accessed 15th July 2015)

“There will be a lot of people talking about statistics today. I want to start by talking about people. Women like Hawa in Mozambique. Hawa has already had to bury some of her children because they died of malnutrition. Of those that survived 3 year old Ali is severely stunted, Jamal is seven and just 3 foot 8 and her oldest daughter Habiba has already lost children of her own. Hawa and her family haven’t been living through a famine. They strive every day to get the nutritious food they need. But it simply hasn’t been possible. Hawa is not alone. After all that has been done, there are still 1 billion people going hungry. 1 in 4 children are stunted through chronic malnutrition. And 165 million children are so malnourished by the age of 2 that their minds and bodies will never fully develop. This is a massive issue for humanity, and it’s absolutely right that as Britain hosts the G8 Summit we should call this conference today. I am delighted that Vice President Temer of Brazil is here to co-host and to build on the work we started together with our Olympic Hunger Summit last year. I’m also grateful to the Children’s Investment Foundation Fund for all their support in making this event possible. And I want to thank the many world-leading businesses, scientists and campaigners for their support today. It’s right too that our NGOs should be out in front – gathering tens of thousands of people in support today - and I’m immensely proud of the IF campaign and all the work that British NGOs do to put issues like this front and centre time and again. We are here today to respond. And as we do, I want to take on three key questions that people ask about this whole issue. First, there are those who ask whether aid really works. They see all the marches, the concerts and the international summits. They hear about the money being spent. In some cases they even donate themselves. But then they wonder: has any of it actually done any good? I say to them – yes it has. Look at what we have achieved together. Look at the progress that economic growth and smart aid has driven. We’ve seen the fastest reduction in poverty in human history. The number of people living on less than $1.25 a day - down by half a billion. Child death rates – down by a half. Deaths from malaria – down by a third. A quarter of a billion children protected from disease through our vaccination programmes - with 4 million lives saved. Don’t tell me this doesn’t make a difference. It makes a massive difference – and all those who have donated and all those countries that keep their aid promises can be proud of what they have done. Second, there are those who say – “OK, it will make a difference, but why does Britain always have to be out in front?” Let me tell you why. It’s because of the kind of people we are - and the kind of country we are. We are the kind of people who believe in doing what is right. We accept the moral case for keeping our promises to the world’s poorest - even when we face challenges at home. When people are dying, we don’t believe in finding excuses. We believe in trying to do something about it. Look at Band Aid and Live8. Look at Red Nose Day. Look at the way the British public respond to appeals from the Disasters Emergency Committee. During the famine in East Africa, British people gave £79 million. This is British families looking at the images on their televisions and responding with their hearts. It says something about this country. It says something about our standing in the world and our sense of duty in helping others. In short – it says something about the kind of people we are. And that makes me proud to be British. But helping those in need is not just about responding with our hearts. It’s about our heads too. Because Britain is the kind of country that is outward-looking. We understand that if we invest in countries before they get broken, we might not end up spending so much on dealing with problems - whether that’s immigration or new threats to our national security. So yes, Britain will continue to lead from the front. We are one of the few countries in the world to meet our promise to spend 0.7 % of our Gross National Income on development. And as part of this commitment, we will use that money to play a full part in the battle to beat hunger. If others play their part too, the commitments that the UK is making today could help 37 million children fight malnutrition by getting the right food and the right care. If these children grow up healthy, they will increase their earnings by 10%. And at what cost per taxpayer? Not even as much as 1 pence a day. And more broadly, if you take our whole commitment to 0.7 % - then for every £1 you pay in tax, just over 1 pence goes towards our aid budget. That’s a good investment. Now the third thing some people say is the most challenging. They say: “OK, I get why it can make a difference and why we play a role - but frankly it feels like there’s no end to this, that the problem of hunger is never going to be solved.” The truth is if we carry on doing things in the same way, they will be right. But because we have the track record, and because we have kept our promises, we have earned the right to say that we should do things differently. We will never beat hunger just by spending more money, or getting developed nations and philanthropists to somehow “do development” to the developing world. It has to be about doing things differently. Different in terms of business. Different in terms of science. Different in terms of government. It’s all about helping those in developing countries take control of their own destiny. For business it’s about harnessing the power of enterprise to educate people on the importance of nutrition in order to sell healthier food and make a commercial return while also transforming lives. For science, it’s about harnessing the power of innovation to develop better seeds and more nutritious and productive crops, like the African breeder Robert Mwanga who bred the orange- fleshed sweet potato. Regular sweet potatoes in Africa have little or no Vitamin A - an essential nutrient that prevents blindness and infant deaths. But just one scoop of orange sweet potato meets a child’s daily Vitamin A needs. And if you want to know the difference that makes – take the story of Maria Mchele, a mother and farmer in Tanzania who for years struggled to grow enough even to feed her family. When she began to farm the new orange sweet potato her life was transformed. Today she is not just providing nutritious food for her own family, but selling it to others, educating her community and lifting herself out of poverty. She has managed to send her children to school and used the proceeds of her farming to build a brick house for her family. And Maria is not alone. Programmes like this have helped local farmers to increase their incomes by up to 400%. Today is our chance to make programmes like that the norm. To stand behind African innovation and help make 2014 the African Year of Agriculture. To back a bold vision of saving 20 million children from chronic malnutrition by 2020. And, you know, 2020 vision means seeing clearly – so that means real transparency. So this is where government, aid and development all need to change and do things differently. Real transparency about who is pledging what and making sure they deliver. Because it’s not the commitments made today that will beat hunger - it’s the way they are followed through tomorrow, and the next day and the day after. And we don’t just need transparency about our pledges. We need something much wider and much deeper: a transparency revolution. So that ordinary people can see that governments in poor countries get the tax receipts they are owed from international businesses, as well as the life changing investment and technological know-how that companies bring. And so they can see too, how their governments spend that money - and how the natural wealth that belongs to them is being used. These fundamental demands are at the heart of my G8 agenda, because they are a crucial part of how we tackle the causes of poverty and not just the consequences. Just before I came onstage I met Frank, a young reporter from Tanzania who has lived through hunger and poverty. He says that no child should suffer the pain of hunger like he has - and that he is “determined to grow up in a world without poverty, where every single child gets the food they need”. As the recent report from the UN High Level Panel that I helped to chair demonstrated, for the first time in history Frank’s goal really is within our grasp. For the first time we have agreed international recommendations for a specific goal on ending hunger and for specific targets on chid stunting, wasting and anaemia. For the first time we have proposals for goals on open, effective and accountable institutions, the rule of law and free speech, and targets on property rights and ending child marriage. And for the first time a target to end absolute poverty by 2030. As an international community – what we agree here today is a vital part of achieving that. Make no mistake, Frank’s future and the future of generations to come lie in our hands. And we must help them fight for it. Today and every day until hunger is beaten and poverty is ended forever.” MP2 Barack Obama, Remarks by the President on World AIDS Day, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, December 1, 2011.

Acquired at http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2011/12/01/president-obama-world- aids-day#transcript (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Well, thank you, Sanjay. It is an honor to be with you today and to follow President Kikwete and President Bush. To Bono and Alicia, to the ONE campaign, thank you for bringing us together. Because of your work, all across Africa there are children who are no longer starving, mothers who are no longer dying of treatable diseases, fathers who are again providing for their families. And because of all of you, so many people are now blessed with hope. We’ve got members of Congress who have done so much for this cause who are here today, and we want to thank them. Let me also thank President Bush for joining us from Tanzania and for his bold leadership on this issue. I believe that history will record the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief as one of his greatest legacies. And that program -- more ambitious than even the leading advocates thought was possible at the time -- has saved thousands and thousands and thousands of lives, and spurred international action, and laid the foundation for a comprehensive global plan that will impact the lives of millions. And we are proud that we have the opportunity to carry that work forward. Today is a remarkable day. Today, we come together as a global community, across continents, across faiths and cultures, to renew our commitment to ending the AIDS pandemic once and for all. Now, if you go back and you look at the themes of past World AIDS Days, if you read them one after another, you’ll see the story of how the human race has confronted one of the most devastating pandemics in our history. You’ll see that in those early years -- when we started losing good men and women to a disease that no one truly understood -- it was about ringing the alarm, calling for global action, proving that this deadly disease was not isolated to one area or one group of people. And that’s part of what makes today so remarkable, because back in those early years, few could have imagined this day -- that we would be looking ahead to “The Beginning of the End,” marking a World AIDS Day that has gone from that early beginning when people were still uncertain to now a theme, “Getting to Zero.” Few could have imagined that we’d be talking about the real possibility of an AIDS-free generation. But that’s what we’re talking about. That’s why we’re here. And we arrived here because of all of you and your unwavering belief that we can -- and we will -- beat this disease. Because we invested in anti-retroviral treatment, people who would have died, some of whom are here today, are living full and vibrant lives. Because we developed new tools, more and more mothers are giving birth to children free from this disease. And because of a persistent focus on awareness, the global rate of new infections and deaths is declining. So make no mistake, we are going to win this fight. But the fight is not over -- not by a long shot. The rate of new infections may be going down elsewhere, but it’s not going down here in America. The infection rate here has been holding steady for over a decade. There are communities in this country being devastated, still, by this disease. When new infections among young black gay men increase by nearly 50 percent in 3 years, we need to do more to show them that their lives matter. When Latinos are dying sooner than other groups, and when black women feel forgotten, even though they account for most of the new cases among women, then we’ve got to do more. So this fight is not over. Not for the 1.2 million Americans who are living with HIV right now. Not for the Americans who are infected every day. This fight is not over for them, it’s not over for their families, and as a consequence, it can’t be over for anybody in this room -- and it certainly isn’t over for your President. Since I took office, we’ve had a robust national dialogue on HIV/AIDS. Members of my administration have fanned out across the country to meet people living with HIV; to meet researchers, faith leaders, medical providers and private sector partners. We’ve spoken to over 4,000 people. And out of all those conversations, we drafted a new plan to combat this disease. Last year, we released that plan -- a first-ever national HIV/AIDS strategy. We went back to basics: prevention, treatment and focusing our efforts where the need is greatest. And we laid out a vision where every American, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or socioeconomic status, can get access to life- extending care. And I want to be clear about something else: Since taking office, we’ve increased overall funding to combat HIV/AIDS to record levels. With bipartisan support, we reauthorized the Ryan White Care Act. And as I signed that bill, I was so proud to also announce that my administration was ending the ban that prohibited people with HIV from entering America. (Applause.) Because of that step, next year, for the first time in two decades, we will host the international AIDS conference. (Applause.) So we’ve done a lot over the past three years, but we can do so much more. Today, I’m announcing some new commitments. We’re committing an additional $15 million for the Ryan White Program that supports care provided by HIV medical clinics across the country. We want to keep those doors open so they can keep saving lives. We’re committing an additional $35 million for state AIDS-drug assistance programs. The federal government can’t do this alone, so I’m also calling on state governments, and pharmaceutical companies, and private foundations to do their part to help Americans get access to all the life-saving treatments. This is a global fight, and it’s one that America must continue to lead. Looking back at the history of HIV/AIDS, you’ll see that no other country has done more than this country, and that’s testament to our leadership as a country. But we can’t be complacent. I think this is an area where we can also look back and take pride that both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have consistently come together to fund this fight -- not just here, but around the world. And that’s a testament to the values that we share as Americans; a commitment that extends across party lines, that’s demonstrated by the fact that President Bush, President Clinton and I are joining you all today. Since I took office, we’ve increased support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. We’ve launched a Global Health Initiative that has improved access to health care, helping bring down the cost of vaccines, and over the next five years, will help save the lives of 4 million more children. And all along, we kept focusing on expanding our impact. Today, I’m proud to announce that as of September, the United States now supports anti- retroviral treatment for nearly 4 million people worldwide. (Applause.) Four million people. And in just the past year, we’ve provided 600,000 HIV-positive mothers with access to drugs so that 200,000 babies could be born HIV-free. (Applause.) And nearly 13 million people have received care and treatment, including more than 4 million children. So we’ve got some stuff to be proud of. But we’ve got to do more. We’re achieving these results not by acting alone, but by partnering with developing countries like Tanzania, and with leaders like President Kikwete. Now, as we go forward, we’ve got to keep refining our strategy so that we’re saving as many lives as possible. We need to listen when the scientific community focuses on prevention. That’s why, as a matter of policy, we’re now investing in what works -- from medical procedures to promoting healthy behavior. And that’s why we’re setting a goal of providing anti-retroviral drugs to more than 1.5 million HIV-positive pregnant women over the next two years so that they have the chance to give birth to HIV-free babies. We’re not going to stop there. We know that treatment is also prevention. And today, we’re setting a new target of helping 6 million people get treatment by the end of 2013. (Applause.) That’s 2 million more people than our original goal. And on this World AIDS Day, here’s my message to everybody who is out there: To the global community -- we ask you to join us. Countries that have committed to the Global Fund need to give the money that they promised. (Applause.) Countries that haven’t made a pledge, they need to do so. (Applause.) That includes countries that in the past might have been recipients, but now are in a position to step up as major donors. China and other major economies are in a position now to transition in a way that can help more people. To Congress -- keep working together and keep the commitments you’ve made intact. At a time when so much in Washington divides us, the fight against this disease has united us across parties and across presidents. And it shows that we can do big things when Republicans and Democrats put their common humanity before politics. So we need to carry that spirit forward. And to all Americans -- we’ve got to keep fighting. Fight for every person who needs our help today, but also fight for every person who didn’t live to see this moment; for the Rock Hudsons and the Arthur Ashes, and every person who woke us up to the reality of HIV/AIDS. We’ve got to fight for Ryan White and his mother Jeanne, and the Ray brothers, and every person who forced us to confront our destructive prejudices and our misguided fears. Fight for Magic Johnson and Mary Fisher, and every man, woman and child, who, when told they were going to die from this disease, they said, “No, we’re not. We’re going to live.” Keep fighting for all of them because we can end this pandemic. We can beat this disease. We can win this fight. We just have to keep at it, steady, persistent -- today, tomorrow, every day until we get to zero. And as long as I have the honor of being your President, that’s what this administration is going to keep doing. That’s my pledge. That’s my commitment to all of you. And that’s got to be our promise to each other -- because we’ve come so far and we’ve saved so many lives, we might as well finish the fight. Thank you for all you’ve done. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you.”

MP3 Oscar Arias Sanchez, “Social Justice in the 21st Century”, Ceremony Keynote Address, at Social justice: Bridging the Global Gap between Rich and Poor, Humanitarian Conference, New York, USA, October 14, 2002.

Acquired at https://hilton- production.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/147/attachments/2002report.pdf?1441211723 (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to be here with you today. It is an honor and a pleasure. This afternoon I would like to discuss a topic that is the central theme of today’s conference: social justice. But first of all, let me offer my heartfelt congratulations to SOS Children’s Villages for receiving this year’s Hilton Humanitarian Prize. I cannot think of a more appropriate organization to honor with this award. In its four hundred children’s villages across one hundred thirty - one nations, SOS reaffirms each day the values of courage, commitment, trust, and accountability in building families for children in need. In total, SOS runs over one thousand five hundred projects around the world.

But it is not just its impressive size and scope that sets SOS apart. The way SOS pursues its mission makes it special: the individual attention given to orphaned or abandoned children; the creation of a family atmosphere so that kids grow up in a place they can truly call home; the opportunity for children who begin with nothing to gain a valuable education and have reason to look toward a future bright with hope. At a time in history when the gap between rich and poor is far too great, SOS is a beacon of light, an example of concrete action taken to confront the glaring inequalities in our world. Thank you for all that you have done.

I come from Latin America, the region with the worst income disparities in the world. This gives me an unfortunate first- hand knowledge about what we are lacking as a world community when we speak of social justice and equality of opportunities. Fortunately, my country, Costa Rica, has one of the lowest levels of social inequality in Latin America, and so I also have some experience of what a more egalitarian society can look like. Of course, we are still far from achieving our goal: a society where everyone’s basic needs are ensured and where all children and adults have ample opportunities to live in dignity and develop to their full human potential.

Because no society in the world has fully achieved this goal, we tend to become complacent, satisfied to say that we are trying, and perhaps believing that such a world isn’t really possible. And if it isn’t, we may ask ourselves, why spend a lot of effort to try to attain something that is unattainable?

But I tell you this, my friends: there is no lack of resources in the world for fighting poverty. What we are experiencing is rather a lack of will. When entire economies enter into crisis, wealthy governments quickly gather the billions of dollars needed for a bail- out. But when we see the crises of poverty and hunger, illiteracy and disease, that affect so many of our brothers and sisters, where is the rapid response? Where is the will to gather up the resources that could feed and house everyone, that could provide safe drinking water, basic health and sanitation, and at least elementary education to the world’s population?

We have been led to believe that it is unrealistic to think in terms of resolving the world’s poverty crisis. But if we take a close look at the priorities of our governments, we will see that the problem is not one of scale, but one of vision. In the year 2000, the world spent about 800 billion dollars on weapons and soldiers, but only fifty-six billion was spent on development assistance. It is estimated by the United Nations Development Programme that an investment of forty billion dollars a year for ten years would be enough to provide basic education, health care and nutrition, potable water and sanitation to all of the world’s people. Yes, with just 5% of what we spend preparing for and fighting wars, we could eliminate the most elementary forms of needless suffering from the face of the planet.

So, why don’t we? It is a tragedy that we are beginning the twenty-first century by building an expensive and unrealistic shield against missiles, rather than a practical and much less taxing shield against poverty and inequality. Between ballistic missiles and social injustice, I am thoroughly convinced that the latter presents a much larger threat to the security of life on this planet. But we choose to focus on chasing after our enemies, all the while diverting precious resources from the battle to be fought against poverty, and therefore reducing our chances of winning it.

If the Bush Administration forges ahead with its plans to build a national missile defense system, we have been assured by numerous experts that China’s investment in military technology will increase dramatically, as will both India’s and Pakistan’s, among others. I need hardly point out that these are countries that cannot afford to waste resources on weapons. In India and Pakistan alone, more than 480 million people subsist on less than one dollar per day, and I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that a large proportion of these people are children. Additionally, these two nations are home to over five hundred million illiterate adults. Increased nuclear power will not help these individuals to live better lives.

Indian author Arundhati Roy called her country’s nuclear bomb “the final act of betrayal by a ruling class that has failed its people.” I believe that we could apply the same strong language to members of the governing and military elite in countries around the world. The simple truth is that spending on arms, and especially getting caught up in regional or global arms races, is the surest way to perpetuate poverty. And, in my view, it is also a very poor method of guaranteeing security. For an arms race never has a winner, and the losers are numbered most heavily among the poor. It is no coincidence that poverty and violence so often go hand in hand. When will we learn that the best way to foster security is to act to ensure justice?

I have been speaking about governments, and now you may be asking yourselves how individuals and organizations fit into this picture. I want to make it perfectly clear that I believe social justice to be the responsibility of governments. Yet governments do not exist in a vacuum. At least in democratic societies, they are to be an expression of the will of the people, and all of us have something to say about that. In every country, there is a vital role to be played by civil society in the struggle for a more just and peaceful world. That role encompasses both immediate action to alleviate suffering, and advocacy and lobbying work to influence those in positions of power to keep the faceless and voiceless ever before them in their work.

There are many bright lights in the world, individuals and organizations, that are working toward both of these ends. As someone with more than thirty years of experience in government and politics, I can tell you quite confidently that while government provides the skeleton of our communities, it is civil society that constitutes the soul. Political leaders must look to individuals and organizations such as the one being honored today in order to find our true north, the manifestation of what is best in humanity, and the direction in which all of our laws and policies should take us. As examples to be emulated and as a chiding rod pushing us on toward real action, non-governmental organizations, as well as outstanding individuals like yourselves, are invaluable. Truly I tell you, our societies would be lifeless without them.

It is incumbent upon all of us, from the individual to the NGO to the state, to be carriers of compassion and voices for social justice. As individuals, we must begin with those around us, and continue to search for ways to make a difference, always keeping a standard of fairness and justice in our hearts. When individuals come together to form organizations, the impact of our actions can be multiplied, and the clamoring for justice grows ever louder. And when we examine the level of government, whether from the point of view of a voter, an activist, or a public office-holder, we must face up to a complex challenge. For it is the responsibility of governments to look at the larger picture, but never to forget the human person, and to balance the needs of individuals and families with the greatest common good.

This is not an easy task, and I tip my hat to those political leaders that are making an honest effort to strike this balance. I tend to believe, however, that many of our governments and societies are leaning much too far in the direction of individualism today, and that we have a serious shortage of solidarity. I would like to suggest that we take the words of Mahatma Gandhi as a guide to our actions as we strive to create a better world. Gandhi identified seven social sins, to be avoided at all cost by political and community leaders, and we would all do well to keep them in mind. They are:

Politics without principle Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Knowledge without character Commerce without morality Science without humanity Worship without sacrifice

If we let these seven road signs mark the paths we don’t want to take, then the path ahead to progress will appear much more clearly.

To conclude, I would like to congratulate SOS Children’s Villages, as well as everyone in this room, for being committed to a vision that promotes social justice, compassion, and solidarity. These are values that are going out of style, and they need as many defenders as they can get. I would also like to encourage every one of you, over the course of this day, to open your minds and hearts to an active examination of how to create a world with more social justice. The challenges before us are great indeed, but I think we will find that when we open ourselves up—as a community—to all of the possibilities presented to us by our imagination and our intellect, our creativity and our logic, we will have taken a great stride further down the road toward a truly just and peaceful world. Thank you”

MP4 Nelson Mandela, Statement to the 641st Meeting of the Special Committee against Apartheid, Cape Town, South Africa, June 22, 1990.

Acquired at http://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/statement_SCAA_1990.shtml (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Your Excellency Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari, Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid; Your Excellency Mr. Joseph Garba, President of the General Assembly; Your Excellency Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Your Excellencies Permanent Representatives; Heads of Observer Missions; ladies and gentlemen, friends and comrades: We feel especially honoured and privileged to have the possibility today to stand at this particular place, to speak to all of you, who represent the peoples of the world. We are most grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, the Special Committee against Apartheid, the Secretary-General and all Member States of the Organization for making it possible for us to be here. The tragedy is that what has created the need for this gathering and made it seem natural that we must gather in this historic meeting place is the fact of the continuing commission of a crime against humanity. How much better it would have been if we were meeting to celebrate a victory in hand, a dream fulfilled, the triumph of justice over a tyrannical past, the realization of the vision enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It will for ever remain an indelible blight on human history that the apartheid crime ever occurred. Future generations will surely ask: what error was made that this system established itself in the wake of the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights? It will for ever remain an accusation and a challenge to all men and women of conscience that it took as long as it has before all of us stood up to say enough is enough. Future generations will surely inquire: what error was made that this system established itself in the aftermath of the trials at Nuremberg? These questions will arise because when this august body, the United Nations, first discussed the South African question, in 1946, it was discussing the issue of racism. They will be posed because the spur to the establishment of this Organization was the determination of all humanity never again to permit racist theory and practice to dragoon the world into the deathly clutches of war and genocide. And yet, for all that, a racist tyranny established itself in our country. As they knew would happen, who refused to treat this matter as a quaint historical aberration, this tyranny has claimed its own conclave of victims. It has established its own brutal worth by the number of children it has killed and the orphans, the widows and widowers it can claim as its unique creation. And still it lives on, provoking strange and monstrous debates about the means that its victims are obliged to use to rid themselves of this intolerable scourge, eliciting arguments from those who choose not to act, that to do nothing must be accepted as the very essence of civilized opposition to tyranny. We hold it as an inviolable principle that racism must be opposed by all the means that humanity has at its disposal. Wherever it occurs it has the potential to result in a systematic and comprehensive denial of human rights to those who are discriminated against. This is because all racism is inherently a challenge to human rights, because it denies the view that every human being is a person of equal worth with any other, because it treats entire peoples as sub-human. This is why it was correct to characterize the apartheid system as a crime against humanity and appropriate that the international community should decide that it should be suppressed and punishment meted out against its perpetrators. We pay tribute to this Organization and its Member States for this and other decisions and actions it took to expunge this crime. We also take this opportunity to salute the Special Committee against Apartheid, which has been and is a very important instrument in our struggle against the iniquitous and oppressive policies of the South African Government. We salute also the States that make up its membership, which have been unrelenting in their resolve to contribute everything they could to ensure that the world was mobilized to act against the apartheid system. In this connection also, Sir, allow us to express a well-deserved tribute to your country, Nigeria, which you so ably represent, as did your predecessor in this important office, His Excellency Major-General Joseph Garba, current President of the General Assembly, under whose leadership the United Nations Declaration on South Africa was adopted by consensus at the sixteenth special session of the General Assembly last December. That Declaration will go down in history as one of the most important documents in the struggle of the international community against apartheid. The fact that it was adopted by consensus was itself a telling blow against the apartheid system and a vital statement underlining the unity of the world community on the South African question and its resolution. We look forward to the report that the Secretary-General of the United Nations will submit dealing with the question of the implementation of the Declaration in South Africa. This report will also be important to the extent that it will provide a basis for further decisions by the United Nations regarding future action on the question of apartheid. What must, however, be clear is that the apartheid system remains in place. None of the principles laid down in the Declaration has been implemented to provide what the Declaration characterized as an internationally acceptable solution of the South African question. Similarly, the profound and irreversible changes which the Declaration visualized have not yet occurred. The conclusion from these observations would seem clear to us. It is that nothing which has happened in South Africa calls for a revision of the positions that this Organization has taken in its struggle against apartheid. We therefore strongly urge that there should be no relaxation of existing measures. The sanctions that have been imposed by the United Nations and by individual Governments should remain in place. We also urge that the United Nations should do everything in its power to maintain the unity it achieved when it adopted the Declaration on South Africa last December. We therefore hope that all Member States will continue to act in concert so as not to create any situation in which those who are opposed to change in our country find encouragement to resist change, because some countries would have destroyed the consensus that has been achieved. In this regard, we take this opportunity once more to call on the countries of the European community, which are holding a summit meeting in a few days' time, themselves to remain faithful to the purposes of the Declaration to whose elaboration they were party and for which they voted. At the initiative of ANC, the process has begun which could lead to a just political settlement in our country. At our well-known meeting in Cape Town, at the beginning of last month, we agreed with the South African Government on the removal of the obstacles to negotiations which are identified in the Declaration. The process of implementing that agreement has started, but as this distinguished gathering knows, a lot still remains to be done before we can say that a climate conducive to negotiations has been created. We therefore still have some distance to travel before we undertake the further steps outlined in the Declaration, leading to negotiations for the adoption of a new, democratic constitution. The fact that a good beginning was made in Cape Town should not lead us to conclude that further progress is assured or that we will not have to confront major obstacles in future. In this regard, we would like to reiterate what we have said before, that we believe that President de Klerk and his colleagues in the leadership of the ruling party are people of integrity. We are of the view that they will abide by decisions that are arrived at in the course of our discussions and negotiations. This, in itself, is an important victory of our common struggle because it is that struggle which has made the cost of maintaining the apartheid system too high and helped to convince the ruling group in our country that changes can no longer be resisted. It is, however, also true that there are many among our white compatriots who are still committed to the maintenance of the evil system of white minority domination. Some are opposed because of their ideological adherence to racism. Others are resisting because they fear democratic majority rule. Some of these are armed and are to be found within the army and the police. Outside of these State agencies, other whites are working at a feverish pace to establish paramilitary groups whose stated aim is the physical liquidation of ANC, its leadership and membership, as well as other persons or formations which these right-wing terrorists see as a threat to the continued existence of the system of white minority domination. We cannot afford to underestimate the threat that these defenders of a brutal and continuing reality pose to the whole process of working towards a just political settlement. The ANC is determined to do everything in its power to ensure speedy movement forward towards the peaceful abolition of the apartheid system. To this end we are engaged in many initiatives within South Africa aimed at bringing into the process of negotiations all the people and the representative political formations of our country. We have to overcome the mistrust that exists on both sides and reinforce the understanding that the only victory we should all seek is the victory of the people as a whole and not the victory of one party over another. It is obvious that none of these processes can be easy. We are, however, inspired by the experience of the people of Namibia and our comrades-in-arms of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), who also overcame the divisions and the mistrust generated by the apartheid system, carried out a peaceful political process within a relatively short period of time and are today a proud nation of independent people. We take this opportunity to salute the representatives of the Namibian people who are present in this Hall and acknowledge the debt we owe them for the contribution they have made to our own liberation. We also salute the front-line States of southern Africa and the rest of our continent for their own enormous contribution to the struggle against apartheid, which has brought us to the point today when we can say that the victory of the struggle for a united, democratic and non-racial South Africa is within our grasp. Tribute is also due to the non-aligned countries and Movement and the peoples of the rest of the world for their own sterling efforts in pursuit of the common cause. What we must once more urge is that all these forces should maintain their unity around the perspectives contained in the United Nations and Harare Declarations on South Africa. How fast we progress towards liberation will depend on how successful we are in our efforts to sustain that united resolve. This is for us a moving moment because we know that as we stand here we are among friends and people of conscience. We know this because we know what you did over the decades to secure my release and the release of other South African political prisoners from Pretoria's dungeons. We thank you most sincerely for this, especially because you have thus given us the opportunity to join hands with you in the search for a speedy solution to the enormous problems facing our country, our region and continent and humanity as a whole. We know also that you harbour the hope that we will not relent or falter in the pursuit of that common vision which should result in the transformation of South Africa into a country of democracy, justice and peace. Standing before the nations of the world, we make that commitment, strengthened by the knowledge that you will fight on side by side with us until victory is achieved. We also take this opportunity to extend warm greetings to all others who fight for their liberation and their human rights, including the peoples of Palestine and Western Sahara. We commend their struggles to you, convinced that we are all moved by the fact that freedom is indivisible, convinced that the denial of the rights of one diminishes the freedom of others. We thank you for your kind invitation to us to address this gathering and for the opportunity it has given us to pay homage to you all: to the Secretary-General, to the President of the General Assembly, to the Special Committee against Apartheid and to the United Nations itself for the work that has been done to end the apartheid crime against humanity. The distance we still have to travel is not long. Let us travel it together. Let us, by our joint actions, vindicate the purposes for which this Organization was established and create a situation wherein its Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will become part of the body of law on which will be based the political and social order of a new South Africa. Our common victory is assured.”

MP5 Desmond Tutu, Speech at the 37th Annual CITRA Conference, Cape Town, South Africa, October 21, 2003.

Acquired at http://www.ica.org/sites/default/files/ICA_2003-10-21_Desmond-Tutu-speech_EN.pdf (accessed 15th July 2015) “In 1995 I had the privilege of being part of a BBC panel discussion on the Legacy of Nuremberg 50 years later. We met in the courtroom where the trial had been held. That is another story. We then had the opportunity of visiting Dachau, the former Nazi concentration camp. Near its entrance was a museum and over the entrance to this were Santana’s haunting words – “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it”. Some of the exhibits were quite incredible. The Germans have always been precise and meticulous and methodical. You could not accuse them of being slipshod. They had captured some material in photographs and these were quite something. One set of pictures recorded some of the experiments that Nazi doctors and scientists performed on the Jewish inmates such as determining what depths or altitudes humans could tolerate. The victims were depicted with contorted faces as they were exposed to the very limits they could stand either in depth or height. There just would have been no way of denying such damning evidence of the gross violations of the rights of these detainees. But I cannot easily forget another set of pictures. It is grossly macabre. You see whenever an inmate was going to be hanged, then his fellow inmates led the unfortunate one to the gallows in a kind of music parade where they played on various musical instruments and had to prance around for the world as if they were participating in a fun jamboree. And all this was caught on film providing incontrovertible evidence of our horrendous capacity to be so awfully inhumane to one another.

Then you walked around the grounds and saw the dormitories in which the inmates were usually packed as tight as sardines, you then walked past the ovens where so many were cremated. What left a chill going down my spine was entering what looked so utterly innocuous. It seemed like a communal shower room until one saw the vents in the wall. Yes, this was a gas chamber. Germans would never again be able to say they did not know. The evidence was there for all to see and the German nation was preserving these records for posterity, hoping that those future generations would declare, “Never again should we allow such atrocities to happen. They did take place but they will never recur”. Such records clearly have proven indispensable in the process of a people taking responsibility, in being accountable and thus in making impunity virtually impossible. In a very important manner they can be said to be a crucial deterrent against future such violations of the rights of others.

The South African Setup We have emerged only fairly recently from a vicious and repressive dispensation that as public policy blatantly denied the vast majority of the inhabitants of this land of their fundamental and inalienable rights. It seems too bizarre to be true and yet we know that it was so. Nelson Mandela, acknowledged to be a colossus on the international stage, had to wait until he was 76 years old before voting for the first time in the land of his birth. He was denied the fundamental right of adult suffrage. The Race Classification Act split up the South African population into frequently hostile,certainly rigidly segregated and alienated race groups and the tests used to determine an individual’s race were often crude and unscientific, for example sticking a pin suddenly into someone and on the basis of his yelp of pain stamp a classification that determined whether one belonged to the privileged few, the whites, or to the rest, the ones in the outer darkness, the Coloureds, the Indians and the blacks variously called non-white, non-European, Bantu, Native or Plural. For South African society was constructed like a pyramid of power, privilege and advantage. The base was formed by the blacks, then the coloureds, Indians and at the top were the ruling elite of whites.

There was residential segregation – the whites lived in salubrious, leafy suburbs with street lighting, paved roads, running water, libraries, arenas, swimming pools and beautiful homes and well appointed schools and hospitals. The blacks particularly lived in what were called locations, centres of poverty, squalor and deprivation with a few street taps to supply water to the oppressed majority, hardly any waterborne sewerage, poorly equipped schools and under paid teachers. The Government spent as much as 8 times per annum on a white child for education what it spent on a black child. It provided free school feeding for white children and only for a short time for black children and then it was stopped altogether.

The Group Areas Act designated most of South Africa (87 %) for white occupancy whilst the vast majority would have to do with the remaining 13 % of the land. It fuelled the harsh policy of forced population removals when nearly 3 million people were uprooted from their homes and dumped as if they were rubbish in poverty stricken, and Bantustan homelands. A vibrant cosmopolitan community in District Six, Cape Town was destroyed and there is a gash on the landscape like a running sore. People were removed from there to be dumped on the inhospitable Cape Flats. Black men were forced to leave their families in the rural areas, seeking out a miserable existence while they came to work in the white man’s town as migrant workers, living unnatural lives in single-sex hostels, undermining black family life through the migratory labour system, the backbone of South Africa’s cheap labour that made investment in South Africa so lucrative.

The Mixed Marriages and Immorality Acts prohibited sex relations between whites and people of other races, they turned something beautiful, love between persons, into something sordid and shameful. People sometimes committed suicide when charged under these laws. The shame was too great. The movement of blacks was severely restricted by the pass laws which helped to trample black dignity under foot by their humiliation. The Job Reservations Act designated certain categories of work as to be done only by whites and even when black and white had the same qualifications say as doctors and were working in the same government hospital, the white doctor was paid more than his black colleague by law.

And more are recorded for posterity in Hansard and the records of Parliament and form part of our memory, of our history, of our identity. It cannot be denied and the fact that the apartheid Government in its death throes rescinded and abolished these iniquitous laws can be taken as accepting that they were reprehensible and thus their action is a form of accountability. The records should serve to remind us of our capacity to be so horribly inhuman to one another and to the records, the archives are absolutely indispensable for this task.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission The TRC helped to give substance to our suspicions that the apartheid government had systematically used the torture of activists and assassinations of so-called “enemies of the State”, meaning virtually anyone who had the temerity to oppose apartheid. Despite the fact that the apartheid government went about destroying considerable volumes of incriminating evidence and even though the language used in the Minutes of the State Security Council is remarkable for its ambiguity making denial plausible, enough has remained providing sufficient evidence for us to say they created the atmosphere which made it possible for gross violations of human rights to occur. They might claim that when they said government enemies should be eliminated or permanently taken out, that they meant they should be detained or banned. Most of those who carried out these strangely worded orders almost unanimously understood them to mean that the targets should be killed. It is odd in the extreme that they should not have used perfectly straightforward words readily available to them such as “detain” or “imprison”. Perhaps they did not in their wildest nightmares imagine that their surreptitious machinations would see the light of day. Their subterfuge was testimony to the potency of records to deter the commission of violations. The only apartheid Cabinet Minister to apply for amnesty confirmed that it was the State that had destroyed the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches through bombing it. When it happened this Minister had quite blatantly lied when he accused the ANC of this act of terrorism and they even detained someone linked to the ANC as being implicated.

It all confirmed what we had always suspected, that a vicious and evil system could ultimately only be maintained by equally vicious and evil methods. The ANC quite unusually had set up commissions of inquiry to investigate allegations of human rights violations especially in its camps. The provided the TRC with a remarkably frank and detailed account showing, on the basis of their submission, that fighting a just cause as they certainly had done was no guarantee that the movement would not use unjust methods. I was quite flabbergasted when the ANC sought an interdict against the publication of the TRC Report when this was so warm in commending the ANC for fighting a just war but pointing to the fact that it had committed sore human rights violations as their submission indicated.

All of this and more is now part of our national archives. It is part of our history. No one can say they never knew. Every South African knows that apartheid was evil, oppressive and unjust and that it used foul and underhand methods to maintain itself. They know that the oppressed and their allies within the white community wonderfully carried out a just war against this evil system, sometimes becoming guilty of some human rights violations but by and large carrying out this just war justly. No one mercifully can be found who ever supported apartheid. Wonderful. We are ashamed of that part of our history, but it is our history none the less. And it stands there recorded in our National Archives to remind us of the awfulnesses we survived and of which we were capable.

The records are crucial to hold us accountable. They are indispensable as deterrents against a repetition of this ghastliness and they are a powerful incentive for us to say, “Never again”. They are a potent bulwark against human rights violations.

We must remember our past so that we do not repeat it.”

MP6 Bill Clinton, “The Role of Partnerships in Achieving the Post - 2015 Development Agenda: Making It Happen, Remarks at The United Nations Economic and Social Council, the United Nations, New York, USA, May 28, 2015.

Acquired at http://www.lessonsfromhaiti.org/press-and-media/transcripts/president-clintons-remarks- at-th/ (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Thank you very much President Sajdik.

Right before you invited me you probably saw the young man whispering to me that you have to go to the podium.

I think when you get older people think that if you stand up you’ll speak more clearly. (LAUGHTER) But I am delighted to be here.

I wanted to first thank you Mr. President and Deputy Secretary-General for your work and for inviting me.

I believe this is the fifth time I have appeared before ECOSOC in the last decade for the purposes which the President has outlined.

I want to thank my close friend and colleague Dr. Paul Farmer and Dr. Dahn from Liberia, Mr. Lahmah from Guinea, and Ms. Rahman from Sierra Leone who will be on the panel, as well as others I will mention in a moment.

You are considering the role of partnerships in developing the successors to the Millennium Development Goals, and you have given those us who have been involved in some form or fashion in dealing with the Ebola crisis the opportunity to speak about what that means in practical terms.

I am very grateful for that.

I have been working with Liberia for many years, principally on healthcare but not entirely, and was there earlier this month, just a few days before the country was declared Ebola free. And as a result of the fact that I was there a few days before I had to go through all the protocols for daily monitoring of symptoms, and you can all relax because this morning I am officially Ebola free. (LAUGHTER)

Our friends in West Africa have survived a fate that most people could never imagine.

They have lost thousands of loved ones, their robust economic growth rate built upon years of hard work has been reversed, communities have been torn apart not only by disease but still sadly by stigma against people who survived because their neighbors and friends have never experienced anything like this before, it is going to take them some time to understand that the people who survived are safe, and belong in their homes, belong in their communities, and belong in the future of their countries.

They have been forced to shut down schools and other basic services.

They’ve struggled to hold their basic health infrastructure together; it was fragile already before the outbreak and now it is in worse shape, not only opening the prospect that future diseases spread quickly but also undermining the ability to deal with basic things that are important to not only the Millennium Development Goals but to the successors like maternal and child health.

The leaders of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and the ministers of health, who we will hear from in a few moments, the UN, the WHO and all the multilateral organizations who have played a response in the Ebola crisis along with the donor nations, many businesses, many African leaders from governments and philanthropy all stepped up to try to help in the aftermath of Ebola. As well as NGO partners like Partners In Health, Doctors Without Borders, Last Mile Health and the Clinton Health Access initiative. They were on the ground during the fight and many of them put their lives at risk and no small number lost their lives trying to deal with this epidemic.

I am particularly grateful to the Governments of Norway, the United Kingdom, and to the EHMA Foundation for supporting the work that our health access initiative has been doing in Liberia.

It is an example of the kind of partnerships that we should be fostering in the future.

When I was there not long ago we had a meeting with President Sirleaf, Dr. Dahn, other Liberian officials, representatives of multilaterals and NGOs to talk about how to shift the emergency response to investing in a healthcare system that is well staffed with thousands more community health workers that will prevent future outbreaks and improve overall health and productivity.

I think this work can be done throughout West Africa and indeed across the continent.

The message we heard from the Liberians was clear.

It was the same that I’ve heard from dozens of other governments and citizens of countries in which our foundation has worked: help us build the health systems. Help us be more self-reliant, less dependent on aid, better able to provide healthcare.

We can hardly be surprised by the severity of the outbreak when on the day before the outbreak Guinea had one health worker for every 1,600 inhabitants; Liberia one for every 3,472; Sierra Leone 1 for every 5,319.

How would the health outcomes of each of our countries be if, like Liberia, we had one physician for every 71,000 people?

That would be the equivalent of having 23 doctors for all of Manhattan.

The older I get the more I am convinced that I use 23 doctors in Manhattan. (LAUGHTER)

We’re laughing but it is a very serious matter.

For those of us who take our healthcare for granted we literally cannot imagine the staggering burden of such severely limited resources.

So my basic message is this: more than anything else, though these countries have terrible economic problems, they have to get their schools going again, they have to pursue all these things that need to be done, they have to repair the damage that was lost.

They have to have health systems, or we will be back here four or five years from now dealing with the same sort problem, if not in these countries than in some other country. It is the most economically sensible thing to do. Now each of these countries has generated a two to three year plan that outlines their needs and priorities. They presented them at the World Bank in April. Liberia requested I think $1.3 billion; Sierra Leone $1.06 billion; Guinea $2.9 billion.

The government of Liberia has also specifically outlined a seven-year plan to strengthen the healthcare workforce at a local cost of $165 million, with $23 million required in the first year and $30 million for the second.

Now if you just run the numbers in your head really quickly, that means that if we, the donor community, were to set aside about 15 percent of any relief over the next three to seven years to strengthening health systems, you wouldn’t have to worry about this problem, and I will give you more examples in a moment, but I think it is very, very important.

I also know recently that a lot of these countries have been told that, well, money is tight and you should give us an 18-month plan.

I think that is a mistake.

Even if the donors don’t know exactly where the money is going, Dr. Farmer’s office here at the UN tracks the donors aid and maybe is the only person still doing that; he is bad about that since he expects people to keep their word.

I think it is important to not discourage these three countries from presenting multi-year plans.

And I think it is important to recognize that within those multi-years plans that they have had the courage to give priority to building their own health systems so they can save the lives of their own people, and in a few minutes I will try to give more examples of how it would work.

First let me say to the donor nations, that if you make these investments it will save you a lot of money over the long run.

It will save you the money that you would spend on future infectious disease outbreaks, on all the other things that are maybe superficially unrelated to Ebola but are in fact correlated with healthcare including worker productivity and the ability of children to attend schools.

They will help nations to become more self-sufficient, which after all is what all of us want for each of our communities and countries.

So I am hopeful that all the donor governments here present will consider making a pledge in July to strengthen the health systems and human resources in West Africa.

When I was given the opportunity to address this body in 2009, I mentioned that throughout my career in politics usually only two things were debated: what are you going to do and how much money are you going to spend on it.

In the world I inhabit now where resources are always limited, no matter how generous, we spend a lot more time talking about how are you going to do whatever you do to achieve your desired objective. The great contribution that the best NGOs have made to the public interests all over the world in the last few years is the ability not only to stand in the gap between what governments can provide and multilaterals can provide and what the private sector can produce, but also to focus on the how question; not a political question, not a philosophical question, a practical question.

I have found that almost always the best way to answer the how question is through partnerships that involve all the major stakeholders.

The Deputy Secretary-General mentioned a few moments ago that we live in a troubled world.

Well, a lot of good things are happening in this troubled world. They just don’t make the headlines because they are not about war and conflict; they are about cooperation and progress.

The world no longer worries so much about conflicts between nation states, although to be sure there are still some around, but between state actors and non-state actors, between people who favor cooperation and those who favor conflict; those who favor inclusion and those who demand exclusion.

And one of the reasons there are so many refugees all over the world is that ordinary people are voting with their feet.

They favor cooperation over conflict; they favor inclusion over exclusion; they think violence and theft are way overrated; and they long for the demands of an ordinary life where people are rewarded for doing the right thing when they get up every day.

That is the great struggle of the 21st century world, and so what we know, what ECOSOC was organized to advance in the beginning, is that when people work together across all lines of society and all areas of expertise they can make good things happen, and we now know that those things will not happen unless there are money, time, material, knowledge and skills contributed by governments, businesses, philanthropists, and NGOs.

Many hands do lighten the load.

And the best projects I have found are often those that have a diverse group of partners that have the explicit purpose of empowering their host nations, to one day not need them anymore because they can handle their own affairs.

Some of you may know that our health access initiative—CHAI—has supported a remarkable program undertaken by the Rwandan government to address a critical shortage of health care workers in that country.

Dr. Farmer and Partners In Health and we worked together to rebuild hospitals in every region of the country that were all destroyed during the genocide, and then to make sure they were staffed and properly functioning. There is even a cancer center in the Rwandan hospital of Butaro near the Ugandan border, which is the best place in that part of Africa to get cancer care.

But the country had no systems, so we came up with a program that now involves—this is an unbelievable story—it involves 23 partners including ten medical schools, six nursing schools, three dental schools, the Yale School of Health Management and a number of distinguished hospitals, and they are working to train an entire national workforce over a multi-year period and they are funded by PEPFAR, and they are only charging seven percent overhead total.

Nothing like this has ever been seen.

I am pretty sure they are losing money, but they’re doing it to make the point that over the long run, the health of the world depends on people being able to take care of themselves and in some ways it is the most exciting project we’re involved in now, and that is what Dr. Farmer and Partners In Health are trying to do in Haiti—I hope he shows you a picture of a remarkable health achievement in Haiti recently.

But this Rwandan thing, PEPFAR funded it and we raised money from other sources; the Clinton Health Access Initiative did our part to help put it together.

This should be done everywhere. We’ve done work like this on a less comprehensive basis in Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and several other countries, but when you hear this next panel and the panelists including—they’re up there—Dr. Fauci, Jeffrey Wright, Gary Cohen, Dr. Atun and Dr. Moeti talk about the importance of partnership, remember that is what they are talking about.

The whole idea is that non-governmental organizations that work with other stakeholders are supposed to figure out how to do things faster, better and at a lower cost.

And if we do that then others can come in and scale up the work. It is a work as I said driven by impact not ideology, but because there is no picture that is heart breaking of someone dying, or no fight, it is easy to not fund them. So I would say again if you want these sorts of partnerships you have to set aside about 15 percent of the (relief) money that is going to go to these countries to build their health systems, and if you can’t fund what they have asked, then it ought to be more than 15 percent because what they want and deserve is the ability to stand on their own. You know that intelligence and the willingness to work are evenly distributed throughout the world and opportunity isn’t. You have to empower people to take over this unless you want to deal with future epidemics.

This is a general problem by the way. The same thing is true with hunger and liberating smallholder farmers. I can give you 50 examples, but it is most urgent in this context, so I hope that you will first exalt partnerships, remind people that many hands lighten the load, try to figure out how to bring people together who have traditionally not worked together, and tell people what we are doing so they understand the modern world is going to be built or brought down by whether we choose inclusive partnerships over exclusive conflicts.

Some things that are second nature in the non-governmental world are unfamiliar to others, I know that. But it is immensely rewarding to me to see how totally free of ideology this work is. The Health Access Initiative for example received support from center left governments and center right governments, and then when the governments change they keep working with us but only if they think we are performing, but the purpose is for all of us to be out of the story.

We are all trying to work ourselves out of a job.

If you look at the progress in health to meet the Millennium Development Goals and in at least two examples exceed them, it is clear that it would not be able to happen without a massive infusion of government money, of the international organizations such as the Global Fund, PEPFAR and others, and big foundations like the Gates Foundations and others but it is also clear that it would not have happened if it hadn’t been for the for NGOs on the ground building up the capacity of countries to save the lives of mothers and babies and others; we have dramatically reduced the number of people dying from TB and malaria, halved the amount of people without access to clean water, seen an exponential scale up of people receiving antivirals.

When I started this work there were only 200,000 people in developing countries receiving ARVs. Today there are more than 14 million.

Just under 10 million are getting them at very low cost on contracts negotiated by our health access initiative. But we don’t touch the money.

The money goes to the governments to build the capacity of local governments to do proper purchasing, proper monitoring, proper distribution.

Those are the kind of things that we need to be reinforcing in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis.

It is not enough to get to zero, we got to stay at zero cases of Ebola.

That will require long-term investment and broad-based partnerships and the willingness to set aside a clear definite route to building the systems of the countries affected and if you do it you can take these three countries plus what is happening in Rwanda and do it in every other developing county in the world that needs the same thing, it is the one clear way we can work ourselves out of this healthcare job.

There will always be natural disasters we have to deal with but in a fundamental way this was a man-made disaster.

If you look at what happened in Nigeria where with one case and they visited 19,000 homes in five weeks because they had a system in place when Ebola reared its head.

A lot of Americans were infected but none of them died because they were brought to America and we have the capacity to do this.

We did lose two people from other countries who came and were too sick for us to bring them back, but the things we take for granted which are not present elsewhere are the things I believe we should focus our partnerships on.

So yes we believe in partnerships, yes we believe in sustainable development goals that can only be reached through broad-based partnerships.

There is no better place to prove the point than in the Ebola affected countries, no better way to spend the money than to give them the capacity they need to make sure this never happens again, and ultimately not to need any kind of assistance from outside except in the case of unavoidable natural disasters. Thank you very much.”

MP7 George W. Bush, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, New York, USA, September, 21 2004.

Acquired at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/21/iraq.usa3 (accessed 15th July 2015)

“Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the honor of addressing this General Assembly. The American people respect the idealism that gave life to this organization. And we respect the men and women of the U.N., who stand for peace and human rights in every part of the world. Welcome to New York City, and welcome to the United States of America.

During the past three years, I've addressed this General Assembly in a time of tragedy for my country, and in times of decision for all of us. Now we gather at a time of tremendous opportunity for the U.N. and for all peaceful nations. For decades, the circle of liberty and security and development has been expanding in our world. This progress has brought unity to Europe, self- government to Latin America and Asia, and new hope to Africa. Now we have the historic chance to widen the circle even further, to fight radicalism and terror with justice and dignity, to achieve a true peace, founded on human freedom.

The United Nations and my country share the deepest commitments. Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance. That dignity is dishonored by oppression, corruption, tyranny, bigotry, terrorism and all violence against the innocent. And both of our founding documents affirm that this bright line between justice and injustice -- between right and wrong -- is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation.

Wise governments also stand for these principles for very practical and realistic reasons. We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terrorists in their midst. We know that free peoples embrace progress and life, instead of becoming the recruits for murderous ideologies.

Every nation that wants peace will share the benefits of a freer world. And every nation that seeks peace has an obligation to help build that world. Eventually, there is no safe isolation from terror networks, or failed states that shelter them, or outlaw regimes, or weapons of mass destruction. Eventually, there is no safety in looking away, seeking the quiet life by ignoring the struggles and oppression of others.

In this young century, our world needs a new definition of security. Our security is not merely found in spheres of influence, or some balance of power. The security of our world is found in the advancing rights of mankind.

These rights are advancing across the world -- and across the world, the enemies of human rights are responding with violence. Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights, and every charter of liberty ever written, are lies, to be burned and destroyed and forgotten. They believe that dictators should control every mind and tongue in the Middle East and beyond. They believe that suicide and torture and murder are fully justified to serve any goal they declare. And they act on their beliefs.

In the last year alone, terrorists have attacked police stations, and banks, and commuter trains, and synagogues -- and a school filled with children. This month in Beslan we saw, once again, how the terrorists measure their success -- in the death of the innocent, and in the pain of grieving families. Svetlana Dzebisov was held hostage, along with her son and her nephew -- her nephew did not survive. She recently visited the cemetery, and saw what she called the "little graves." She said, "I understand that there is evil in the world. But what have these little creatures done?"

Members of the United Nations, the Russian children did nothing to deserve such awful suffering, and fright, and death. The people of Madrid and Jerusalem and Istanbul and Baghdad have done nothing to deserve sudden and random murder. These acts violate the standards of justice in all cultures, and the principles of all religions. All civilized nations are in this struggle together, and all must fight the murderers.

We're determined to destroy terror networks wherever they operate, and the United States is grateful to every nation that is helping to seize terrorist assets, track down their operatives, and disrupt their plans. We're determined to end the state sponsorship of terror -- and my nation is grateful to all that participated in the liberation of Afghanistan. We're determined to prevent proliferation, and to enforce the demands of the world -- and my nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator.

The dictator agreed in 1991, as a condition of a cease-fire, to fully comply with all Security Council resolutions -- then ignored more than a decade of those resolutions. Finally, the Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say "serious consequences," for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences. And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world.

Defending our ideals is vital, but it is not enough. Our broader mission as U.N. members is to apply these ideals to the great issues of our time. Our wider goal is to promote hope and progress as the alternatives to hatred and violence. Our great purpose is to build a better world beyond the war on terror.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have established a global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In three years the contributing countries have funded projects in more than 90 countries, and pledged a total of $5.6 billion to these efforts. America has undertaken a $15 billion effort to provide prevention and treatment and humane care in nations afflicted by AIDS, placing a special focus on 15 countries where the need is most urgent. AIDS is the greatest health crisis of our time, and our unprecedented commitment will bring new hope to those who have walked too long in the shadow of death.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have joined together to confront the evil of trafficking in human beings. We're supporting organizations that rescue the victims, passing stronger anti-trafficking laws, and warning travelers that they will be held to account for supporting this modern form of slavery. Women and children should never be exploited for pleasure or greed, anywhere on Earth.

Because we believe in human dignity, we should take seriously the protection of life from exploitation under any pretext. In this session, the U.N. will consider a resolution sponsored by Costa Rica calling for a comprehensive ban on human cloning. I support that resolution and urge all governments to affirm a basic ethical principle: No human life should ever be produced or destroyed for the benefit of another.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have changed the way we fight poverty, curb corruption, and provide aid. In 2002 we created the Monterrey Consensus, a bold approach that links new aid from developed nations to real reform in developing ones. And through the Millennium Challenge Account, my nation is increasing our aid to developing nations that expand economic freedom and invest in the education and health of their own people.

Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have acted to lift the crushing burden of debt that limits the growth of developing economies, and holds millions of people in poverty. Since these efforts began in 1996, poor countries with the heaviest debt burdens have received more than $30 billion of relief. And to prevent the build-up of future debt, my country and other nations have agreed that international financial institutions should increasingly provide new aid in the form of grants, rather than loans.

Because we believe in human dignity, the world must have more effective means to stabilize regions in turmoil, and to halt religious violence and ethnic cleansing. We must create permanent capabilities to respond to future crises. The United States and Italy have proposed a Global Peace Operations Initiative. G-8 countries will train 75,000 peacekeepers, initially from Africa, so they can conduct operations on that continent and elsewhere. The countries of the G-8 will help this peacekeeping force with deployment and logistical needs.

At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide. The United States played a key role in efforts to broker a cease-fire, and we're providing humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people. Rwanda and Nigeria have deployed forces in Sudan to help improve security so aid can be delivered. The Security Council adopted a new resolution that supports an expanded African Union force to help prevent further bloodshed, and urges the government of Sudan to stop flights by military aircraft in Darfur. We congratulate the members of the Council on this timely and necessary action. I call on the government of Sudan to honor the cease-fire it signed, and to stop the killing in Darfur.

Because we believe in human dignity, peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy. No other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace. We've witnessed the rise of democratic governments in predominantly Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian cultures. Democratic institutions have taken root in modern societies, and in traditional societies. When it comes to the desire for liberty and justice, there is no clash of civilizations. People everywhere are capable of freedom, and worthy of freedom.

Finding the full promise of representative government takes time, as America has found in two centuries of debate and struggle. Nor is there any -- only one form of representative government -- because democracies, by definition, take on the unique character of the peoples that create them. Yet this much we know with certainty: The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.

Freedom is finding a way in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and we must continue to show our commitment to democracies in those nations. The liberty that many have won at a cost must be secured. As members of the United Nations, we all have a stake in the success of the world's newest democracies.

Not long ago, outlaw regimes in Baghdad and Kabul threatened the peace and sponsored terrorists. These regimes destabilized one of the world's most vital -- and most volatile -- regions. They brutalized their peoples, in defiance of all civilized norms. Today, the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of us all.

The Afghan people are showing extraordinary courage under difficult conditions. They're fighting to defend their nation from Taliban holdouts, and helping to strike against the terrorists killers. They're reviving their economy. They've adopted a constitution that protects the rights of all, while honoring their nation's most cherished traditions. More than 10 million Afghan citizens -- over 4 million of them women -- are now registered to vote in next month's presidential election. To any who still would question whether Muslim societies can be democratic societies, the Afghan people are giving their answer.

Since the last meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have regained sovereignty. Today, in this hall, the Prime Minister of Iraq and his delegation represent a country that has rejoined the community of nations. The government of Prime Minister Allawi has earned the support of every nation that believes in self-determination and desires peace. And under Security Council resolutions 1511 and 1546, the world is providing that support. The U.N., and its member nations, must respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request, and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal, and free.

A democratic Iraq has ruthless enemies, because terrorists know the stakes in that country. They know that a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a decisive blow against their ambitions for that region. So a terrorists group associated with al Qaeda is now one of the main groups killing the innocent in Iraq today -- conducting a campaign of bombings against civilians, and the beheadings of bound men. Coalition forces now serving in Iraq are confronting the terrorists and foreign fighters, so peaceful nations around the world will never have to face them within our own borders.

Our coalition is standing beside a growing Iraqi security force. The NATO Alliance is providing vital training to that force. More than 35 nations have contributed money and expertise to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. And as the Iraqi interim government moves toward national elections, officials from the United Nations are helping Iraqis build the infrastructure of democracy. These selfless people are doing heroic work, and are carrying on the great legacy of Sergio de Mello.

As we have seen in other countries, one of the main terrorist goals is to undermine, disrupt, and influence election outcomes. We can expect terrorist attacks to escalate as Afghanistan and Iraq approach national elections. The work ahead is demanding. But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat, it is to prevail.

The advance of freedom always carries a cost, paid by the bravest among us. America mourns the losses to our nation, and to many others. And today, I assure every friend of Afghanistan and Iraq, and every enemy of liberty: We will stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes of freedom and security are fulfilled.

These two nations will be a model for the broader Middle East, a region where millions have been denied basic human rights and simple justice. For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.

This commitment to democratic reform is essential to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups. The longsuffering Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve true leaders capable of creating and governing a free and peaceful Palestinian state.

Even after the setbacks and frustrations of recent months, goodwill and hard effort can achieve the promise of the road map to peace. Those who would lead a new Palestinian state should adopt peaceful means to achieve the rights of their people, and create the reformed institutions of a stable democracy. Arab states should end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, and establish normal relations with Israel. Israel should impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people, and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations. And world leaders should withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause.

The democratic hopes we see growing in the Middle East are growing everywhere. In the words of the Burmese democracy advocate, Aung San Suu Kyi: "We do not accept the notion that democracy is a Western value. To the contrary; democracy simply means good government rooted in responsibility, transparency, and accountability." Here at the United Nations, you know this to be true. In recent years, this organization has helped create a new democracy in East Timor, and the U.N. has aided other nations in making the transition to self-rule.

Because I believe the advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world, today I propose establishing a Democracy Fund within the United Nations. This is a great calling for this great organization. The fund would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law and independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions. Money from the fund would also help set up voter precincts and polling places, and support the work of election monitors. To show our commitment to the new Democracy Fund, the United States will make an initial contribution. I urge other nations to contribute, as well.

Today, I've outlined a broad agenda to advance human dignity, and enhance the security of all of us. The defeat of terror, the protection of human rights, the spread of prosperity, the advance of democracy -- these causes, these ideals, call us to great work in the world. Each of us alone can only do so much. Together, we can accomplish so much more.

History will honor the high ideals of this organization. The charter states them with clarity: "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights," "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."

Let history also record that our generation of leaders followed through on these ideals, even in adversity. Let history show that in a decisive decade, members of the United Nations did not grow weary in our duties, or waver in meeting them. I'm confident that this young century will be liberty's century. I believe we will rise to this moment, because I know the character of so many nations and leaders represented here today. And I have faith in the transforming power of freedom.

May God bless you.”

MP8 Kofi Annan, Nobel Lecture, the United Nations, the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony, Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2001.

Acquired at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2001/annan-lecture.html

(accessed 15th July 2015)

“Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, in Afghanistan, a girl will be born. Her mother will hold her and feed her, comfort her and care for her – just as any mother would anywhere in the world. In these most basic acts of human nature, humanity knows no divisions. But to be born a girl in today's Afghanistan is to begin life centuries away from the prosperity that one small part of humanity has achieved. It is to live under conditions that many of us in this hall would consider inhuman.

I speak of a girl in Afghanistan, but I might equally well have mentioned a baby boy or girl in Sierra Leone. No one today is unaware of this divide between the world’s rich and poor. No one today can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on the poor and dispossessed who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedoms, security, food and education than any of us. The cost, however, is not borne by them alone. Ultimately, it is borne by all of us – North and South, rich and poor, men and women of all races and religions.

Today's real borders are not between nations, but between powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated. Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another.

Scientists tell us that the world of nature is so small and interdependent that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can generate a violent storm on the other side of the earth. This principle is known as the "Butterfly Effect." Today, we realize, perhaps more than ever, that the world of human activity also has its own "Butterfly Effect" – for better or for worse.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further – we will realize that humanity is indivisible. New threats make no distinction between races, nations or regions. A new insecurity has entered every mind, regardless of wealth or status. A deeper awareness of the bonds that bind us all – in pain as in prosperity – has gripped young and old.

In the early beginnings of the 21st century – a century already violently disabused of any hopes that progress towards global peace and prosperity is inevitable -- this new reality can no longer be ignored. It must be confronted.

The 20th century was perhaps the deadliest in human history, devastated by innumerable conflicts, untold suffering, and unimaginable crimes. Time after time, a group or a nation inflicted extreme violence on another, often driven by irrational hatred and suspicion, or unbounded arrogance and thirst for power and resources. In response to these cataclysms, the leaders of the world came together at mid-century to unite the nations as never before.

A forum was created – the United Nations – where all nations could join forces to affirm the dignity and worth of every person, and to secure peace and development for all peoples. Here States could unite to strengthen the rule of law, recognize and address the needs of the poor, restrain man’s brutality and greed, conserve the resources and beauty of nature, sustain the equal rights of men and women, and provide for the safety of future generations.

We thus inherit from the 20th century the political, as well as the scientific and technological power, which – if only we have the will to use them – give us the chance to vanquish poverty, ignorance and disease.

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. This will require us to look beyond the framework of States, and beneath the surface of nations or communities. We must focus, as never before, on improving the conditions of the individual men and women who give the state or nation its richness and character. We must begin with the young Afghan girl, recognizing that saving that one life is to save humanity itself.

Over the past five years, I have often recalled that the United Nations' Charter begins with the words: "We the peoples." What is not always recognized is that "we the peoples" are made up of individuals whose claims to the most fundamental rights have too often been sacrificed in the supposed interests of the state or the nation.

A genocide begins with the killing of one man – not for what he has done, but because of who he is. A campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' begins with one neighbour turning on another. Poverty begins when even one child is denied his or her fundamental right to education. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life, all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations.

In this new century, we must start from the understanding that peace belongs not only to states or peoples, but to each and every member of those communities. The sovereignty of States must no longer be used as a shield for gross violations of human rights. Peace must be made real and tangible in the daily existence of every individual in need. Peace must be sought, above all, because it is the condition for every member of the human family to live a life of dignity and security.

The rights of the individual are of no less importance to immigrants and minorities in Europe and the Americas than to women in Afghanistan or children in Africa. They are as fundamental to the poor as to the rich; they are as necessary to the security of the developed world as to that of the developing world.

From this vision of the role of the United Nations in the next century flow three key priorities for the future: eradicating poverty, preventing conflict, and promoting democracy. Only in a world that is rid of poverty can all men and women make the most of their abilities. Only where individual rights are respected can differences be channelled politically and resolved peacefully. Only in a democratic environment, based on respect for diversity and dialogue, can individual self-expression and self-government be secured, and freedom of association be upheld.

Throughout my term as Secretary-General, I have sought to place human beings at the centre of everything we do – from conflict prevention to development to human rights. Securing real and lasting improvement in the lives of individual men and women is the measure of all we do at the United Nations.

It is in this spirit that I humbly accept the Centennial Nobel Peace Prize. Forty years ago today, the Prize for 1961 was awarded for the first time to a Secretary-General of the United Nations – posthumously, because Dag Hammarskjöld had already given his life for peace in Central Africa. And on the same day, the Prize for 1960 was awarded for the first time to an African – Albert Luthuli, one of the earliest leaders of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. For me, as a young African beginning his career in the United Nations a few months later, those two men set a standard that I have sought to follow throughout my working life.

This award belongs not just to me. I do not stand here alone. On behalf of all my colleagues in every part of the United Nations, in every corner of the globe, who have devoted their lives – and in many instances risked or given their lives in the cause of peace – I thank the Members of the Nobel Committee for this high honour. My own path to service at the United Nations was made possible by the sacrifice and commitment of my family and many friends from all continents – some of whom have passed away – who taught me and guided me. To them, I offer my most profound gratitude.

In a world filled with weapons of war and all too often words of war, the Nobel Committee has become a vital agent for peace. Sadly, a prize for peace is a rarity in this world. Most nations have monuments or memorials to war, bronze salutations to heroic battles, archways of triumph. But peace has no parade, no pantheon of victory.

What it does have is the Nobel Prize – a statement of hope and courage with unique resonance and authority. Only by understanding and addressing the needs of individuals for peace, for dignity, and for security can we at the United Nations hope to live up to the honour conferred today, and fulfil the vision of our founders. This is the broad mission of peace that United Nations staff members carry out every day in every part of the world.

A few of them, women and men, are with us in this hall today. Among them, for instance, are a Military Observer from Senegal who is helping to provide basic security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; a Civilian Police Adviser from the United States who is helping to improve the rule of law in Kosovo; a UNICEF Child Protection Officer from Ecuador who is helping to secure the rights of Colombia's most vulnerable citizens; and a World Food Programme Officer from China who is helping to feed the people of North Korea.

Distinguished guests,

The idea that there is one people in possession of the truth, one answer to the world’s ills, or one solution to humanity’s needs, has done untold harm throughout history – especially in the last century. Today, however, even amidst continuing ethnic conflict around the world, there is a growing understanding that human diversity is both the reality that makes dialogue necessary, and the very basis for that dialogue.

We understand, as never before, that each of us is fully worthy of the respect and dignity essential to our common humanity. We recognize that we are the products of many cultures, traditions and memories; that mutual respect allows us to study and learn from other cultures; and that we gain strength by combining the foreign with the familiar.

In every great faith and tradition one can find the values of tolerance and mutual understanding. The Qur’an, for example, tells us that "We created you from a single pair of male and female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other." Confucius urged his followers: "when the good way prevails in the state, speak boldly and act boldly. When the state has lost the way, act boldly and speak softly." In the Jewish tradition, the injunction to "love thy neighbour as thyself," is considered to be the very essence of the Torah.

This thought is reflected in the Christian Gospel, which also teaches us to love our enemies and pray for those who wish to persecute us. Hindus are taught that "truth is one, the sages give it various names." And in the Buddhist tradition, individuals are urged to act with compassion in every facet of life.

Each of us has the right to take pride in our particular faith or heritage. But the notion that what is ours is necessarily in conflict with what is theirs is both false and dangerous. It has resulted in endless enmity and conflict, leading men to commit the greatest of crimes in the name of a higher power.

It need not be so. People of different religions and cultures live side by side in almost every part of the world, and most of us have overlapping identities which unite us with very different groups. We can love what we are, without hating what – and who – we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.

This will not be possible, however, without freedom of religion, of expression, of assembly, and basic equality under the law. Indeed, the lesson of the past century has been that where the dignity of the individual has been trampled or threatened – where citizens have not enjoyed the basic right to choose their government, or the right to change it regularly – conflict has too often followed, with innocent civilians paying the price, in lives cut short and communities destroyed.

The obstacles to democracy have little to do with culture or religion, and much more to do with the desire of those in power to maintain their position at any cost. This is neither a new phenomenon nor one confined to any particular part of the world. People of all cultures value their freedom of choice, and feel the need to have a say in decisions affecting their lives.

The United Nations, whose membership comprises almost all the States in the world, is founded on the principle of the equal worth of every human being. It is the nearest thing we have to a representative institution that can address the interests of all states, and all peoples. Through this universal, indispensable instrument of human progress, States can serve the interests of their citizens by recognizing common interests and pursuing them in unity. No doubt, that is why the Nobel Committee says that it "wishes, in its centenary year, to proclaim that the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations".

I believe the Committee also recognized that this era of global challenges leaves no choice but cooperation at the global level. When States undermine the rule of law and violate the rights of their individual citizens, they become a menace not only to their own people, but also to their neighbours, and indeed the world. What we need today is better governance – legitimate, democratic governance that allows each individual to flourish, and each State to thrive.

Your Majesties, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, You will recall that I began my address with a reference to the girl born in Afghanistan today. Even though her mother will do all in her power to protect and sustain her, there is a one-in-four risk that she will not live to see her fifth birthday. Whether she does is just one test of our common humanity – of our belief in our individual responsibility for our fellow men and women. But it is the only test that matters.

Remember this girl and then our larger aims – to fight poverty, prevent conflict, or cure disease – will not seem distant, or impossible. Indeed, those aims will seem very near, and very achievable – as they should. Because beneath the surface of states and nations, ideas and language, lies the fate of individual human beings in need. Answering their needs will be the mission of the United Nations in the century to come. Thank you very much.” MP9 Tony Blair, “Not Just Aid: How making government work can transform Africa”, Center for Global Development, Washington D.C., USA, December 16, 2010.

Acquired at http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/speeches/entry/not-just-aid-how-making- government-work-can-transform-africa/ (accessed 15th July 2015)

“This is absolutely the right moment for a debate about development and there is no organisation better than the Centre for Global Development to be doing it.

There are many reasons why the right time is now. There is a debate about virtually every other aspect of Government policy today in the developed world. We are all debating and re-analysing, often from first principles, traditional systems of welfare, education, healthcare and of course the economy. And we are debating them with many of the same themes recurring: a hand up not a hand out; public sector spending matched by reform; new ways of working, new frameworks of accountability and new ideas about how to make Government more effective, more strategic and more geared to getting things done.

It would be odd if development policy were excluded. And of course it shouldn’t be. It is just as much in need of intellectual spring cleaning. Fortunately just at the appropriate moment there has arrived a great new batch of development leaders willing to break new ground: Bob Zoellick at the World Bank; Helen Clark at UNDP; Raj Shah at USAID; Cathy Ashton and Andris Piebalgs at the EU Commission and Andrew Mitchell at DFID. In all cases, they are prepared to think anew, to work with the private sector and to escape old bureaucratic mindsets. Then there are great actors like the CGI, the Gates Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Institute and David Sainsbury’s Gatsby Foundation, and a host of eager private sector investors who want to do good business but in a proper way bringing real and enduring benefits to their host nations.

They are matched by a new generation of African leaders, in Government, in society, in business. My charity –AGI– works in three countries and will soon expand to more. In all three, I notice a younger generation determined to take the country’s future into their own hands; impatient with those who blame the present on the past; and eager to learn and apply the lessons of others from around the world. They want a partnership, not a donor/recipient relationship.

Africa’s future is a strategic interest for us. The Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development and the new State Department Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review are emphatic on this point and rightly. Security, resources, food, water: you name it and we have an interest in how Africa develops.

AGI focuses on one thing: building effective systems of capacity to govern. A few preliminary points to clear away any misinterpretations are necessary. I am not arguing that capacity is more important that democracy. It isn’t. Indeed as I shall argue the two are linked. I am not arguing that aid doesn’t matter. It does. When British Prime Minister I trebled aid to Africa and made increases in aid and debt cancellation the centre piece of the 2005 G8 Summit. Aid does work. It has brought real and profound benefits to poor people and increasingly so in recent years. The “Dead Aid” thesis makes some valid points; but it shouldn’t define how we view development. However I am arguing that without building effective capacity, without Governments capable of delivering practical things and on a path to release from dependency on aid, then aid can only ever be a palliative – vital to many, but not transformative of a nation.

It is precisely this thinking that has led to the idea of “cash on delivery” which I support. However it is crucial for another reason. As the 20th century clashes of fundamentalist political ideology recede, and as the post-war experiments in big government structures start to yield certain undeniable lessons, there really isn’t much doubt as to what works and what doesn’t.

The vision thing is often the easy part. Where you need to get to, is reasonably obvious. What is really hard is getting there and doing it. It is the nuts and bolts of policy. It is strategy. It is performance management. It is delivery. It is the right expertise in the right place. It is ministers who can focus. It is organising and communicating it.

This is, in fact, true for Governments in developed nations. So how much more is it true for Governments in Sub Saharan Africa? They have plenty of great reports setting out 2020 or 2030 visions. Read them and you will find 150 “priorities”. You will find bold imperatives to do this or do that, sometimes somewhat divorced from their political realities. However, you will find in the daily mechanisms of Government, there is simply not the capability, the people or the systems to make things happen.

This is where there is a big challenge for development policy, not just what we do to build capacity but how we do it: more innovative; more enterprising and more politically connected.

Here, briefly are seven areas to work on. First, we should help build a strong centre of Government in and around the President or Prime Minister. To those who worry that this gives too much power into the hands of the leader and we cannot be sure of the consequences of such a concentration of power, I say: if you are unsure of the leader, don’t support them. But there is no case I know of, where a Government has changed a country for the better, without strong and effective leadership at the centre. With such a centre built, you can then fan out the same lessons to the Ministries. But a President or Prime Minister without efficient capability on policy, strategy, delivery and communication, will not achieve much. What’s more, the Ministries need that strong direction at the centre to be empowered to make changes themselves. Often the problem crosses departmental boundaries. The Agriculture Ministry depends on the Roads Ministry. The Schools Ministry depends on the Energy Ministry. Only the centre can drive such co-ordination properly.

Second, we have to help countries prioritise. This is correct for its own sake.

So, for example, Nigeria is right to focus on the power sector.

Get that working and everything else has possibility. Fail on that and little moves. But it is also correct for another reason: The minute I see a government plan with 30 priorities in it, I know nothing will happen. The political energy is too diffuse. And these priorities should be their priorities not ours.

Which brings me to the third point: why China has had such an impact? Leave aside the debate about the effect of Chinese influence. But let us understand why they have the influence. It is not only money. It is that they ask the country what the country needs and supply it. Usually it is infrastructure – roads, power, even functioning Government buildings. They do it. We can do it too. But we have to work on the things the country judges to be vital, not the things that we think back in our home legislature gets the biggest cheer. None of that means we don’t push on the areas we sensibly think are crucial e.g. health and education in Sierra Leone and Liberia. But our priorities have to connect with theirs. This is what we mean by “country ownership”.

Fourth, we should be the champions of quality private sector investment. The work the World Bank and IFC are doing here is really important. When we got over 1000 people to come to Sierra Leone’s first ever London investment conference, I knew we were getting there; or when in 2010 Rwanda rose up the rankings more than any other nation in the place to do business league. Big respectable companies bring more than investment. They bring intellectual capital and they give confidence to others. They can also help spin off, smaller businesses.

Fifth, they will only come however, if minimum requirements on the judicial system and rule of law are in place. Here again, we need to step up our focus. For many African countries, even the basics on law and order would do. There is a vast expertise internationally on what creates a functioning civil police force and at least a framework for commercial justice. For understandable reasons, some African countries, struggling to emerge from conflict, have put a major emphasis on building their army and security force. But for many ordinary citizens and for would-be expatriates working there, travelling the streets of the capital free from fear is a pre-requisite of a confident future. It is a proper non-corrupt civic police they need.

Here is the sixth point. The capacity in all areas that we have to build requires a deep level of practical expertise. The good news is: this expertise exists. The challenge is we can do so much more to use it in the development field. What we have found in the AGI work is that there is this huge untapped resource out there in the wealthy nations, for precisely, the expertise the African countries need. There are analysts and experts from major private sector companies who eagerly accept the prospect of 1-2 years working in Africa with a level of responsibility they would never attain back home. They are well trained, smart and above all, well motivated. Then there is a legion of the retired who, may be in their sixties, have an enormous experience of practical problem-solving at the top ranks of business or Government. They would love a chance to be involved.

When we were helping one of our countries negotiate a tricky commercial resource contract, we came across a top London lawyer, partner at one of the best City firms, who agreed to come and help. The difference just one qualified person made was extraordinary. I bet there are large numbers of similar people out there. We should access them.

Which brinGs me to the seventh point: building capacity only works if those engaged are not fly in fly out consultants but people willing to work alongside the locals and transfer the know-how. This has been the most heartening aspect of the work we have done. In each case, as AGI has continued its work, there has been developed a really good team of people at the centre who are nationals of the country. This is how capacity building has to work, training up those that when the outside workers move on, have the skills to carry on with the same level of expertise.

This training, by the way, in my view works best when it is done ‘on the job’ so to speak, sitting alongside and working alongside each other. The aim is to build long-term, sustainable capacity. But this is often achieved best by working on specific priorities in the real life conditions of Government.

The skills audit need not stay with the technical expertise. There are also retired political leaders and Ministers – and I am one – who can help interact with the political leadership of the country and who, by virtue of a common experience have a different insight into how change can be brought about in the often harsh terrain of real politics.

I know many will say that all of this is fine; but it won’t make up for situations where there is a democratic or transparency deficit, where there is corruption or where there are tribal or ethnic tensions that can predominate. This is true. But I do think effective governance has a firm read- across to what we normally call ‘good’ governance. The problem for many struggling nations is that their people, after years of poor governance, no progress or, worse, regression, lose faith in the political process. Electing a government can be like a transaction because that’s how the system works, an interplay of tribal, ethnic, or just “vested interest” forces. This is what can change in Africa today, and is changing. When people see improvements taking place as a result of Government decisions, their sense that politics is about changing lives not simply changing rulers, takes root; and it is at that point that they see corruption not as an inevitable consequence of an inevitably broken system, but as a brake on their aspirations that is neither inevitable nor acceptable.

So I think this is an incredibly exciting time to be in the development field. There are great people like many here today with long experience and extraordinary commitment in this area. And there are new leaders; a new sense of purpose; new players in the NGO, charitable and private sector. All of this is creating a new sense of possibility and therefore hope.

None of this means the challenges aren’t enormous; or that there won’t be many setbacks. But the hope is real; the changes are tangible; and above all, the desire on the part of Africa for its destiny to be in African hands is palpable and invigorating. This could be Africa’s century. It should be. To play even a very small part in making that happen is a privilege.”

MP10 Ban Ki-moon, “Best Humanitarian Solution is a Political Solution to End the War”, Opening Remarks at the Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria, Kuwait City, Kuwait March 31, 2015.

Acquired at https://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sgsm16634.doc.htm (accessed 15th July 2016)

“Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks at the Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria, in Kuwait today: It’s a great pleasure and honour for me to chair this conference and to welcome you all today. Let me begin by thanking His Highness Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah for hosting this Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria for the third time. His support and his announcement of a contribution in the amount of $500 million is clear testament to the Government of Kuwait’s global commitment to humanitarian action. I would like to again express my deepest appreciation and admiration on behalf of all of us for his compassionate global humanitarian leadership. Thank you, Your Highness, for your leadership and caring hands. I would also like to extend my personal thanks to the staff of all humanitarian agencies and our local partners in Syria and across the region. Despite the dire conditions, you continue to stay and deliver as a lifeline for millions of Syrians. Thank you for your courage and commitment. We are profoundly grateful. Allow me to extend a special word of gratitude to outgoing Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos. As Emergency Relief Coordinator, she has stood up, not only for the people of Syria, but also people in need around the world. I know you join me in thanking her for her courage and compassion and wishing her well. The Syrian people are victims of the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. They are not asking for sympathy, they are asking for help. Last night, I saw a deeply moving video entitled Clouds Over Sidra. It is an amazing virtual reality production of the starkness of life in the Za’atari Refugee Camp through the eyes of a beautiful young girl by the name of Sidra. She says “I have been here a year and a half, and that is long enough… but no one knows when it will be safe to go home, nor what will be left for them when they return.” I often think back on my visits in recent years to refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. Children asked: “Why am I here? What did I do wrong? When can I go home?” I have no answer. I have only shame and deep anger and frustration at the international community’s impotence to stop the war. Year, after year, after year, the world has watched Syria being torn apart. By conservative estimates, more than 220,000 Syrians are now dead. This number is likely much higher. Four out of five Syrians live in poverty, misery and deprivation. The country has lost nearly four decades of human development. Unemployment is over 50 per cent. Life expectancy has been cut by an astounding 20 years. Regional stability is buckling under the weight of the Syrian crisis. Nearly half of the country's men, women and children have been forced to flee their homes. Palestinian refugees in Syria are facing extreme hardship — most vividly demonstrated by epic scenes of suffering at Yarmouk camp. Most have been displaced, yet again. Many of the nearly 560,000 Palestine refugees had been self-sufficient. Today, 95 per cent are entirely dependent on [the] United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Syria’s children continue to suffer on a scale that haunts the soul. Young girls and boys have been systematically killed, injured and displaced. Attacks have directly targeted schools. More and more children are being recruited to fight. Millions are out of school, creating yet another lost generation. Now we are about to reach yet another grim milestone — close to 4 million people have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. I thank the Governments and people of the host countries who are carrying an undue and heavy burden — most notably Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. They have opened their doors, their hearts and their wallets to Syrian families running for their lives. Yet, we know that essential services, such as health, education and sanitation are at a breaking point. Competition for jobs, housing, water and land is undermining social cohesion in neighbouring countries. Every day it gets worse — for the people of Syria and the region at large. The United Nations is working to address the conflict's deep roots and devastating impact. Our cross-border assistance authorized by the Security Council is reaching more people inside Syria. This is encouraging, but it is not nearly enough. Almost 5 million Syrians are still trapped without food or medical help in hard-to-reach or besieged areas. Governments or movements that aspire to legitimacy do not place severe limits on access for life-saving aid to their own people. Despite the challenges, threats and attacks against aid workers, UN agencies and our international and local partners continue to provide life-saving assistance, through regular, cross- line and cross-border operations. Our human rights colleagues are diligently monitoring, documenting and speaking out against atrocities. We must ensure that serious crimes do not go unpunished. The Syrian people deserve accountability. Last year’s conference generated $2.4 billion in pledges — more than 90 per cent of which have been committed. I would particularly like to recognize the efforts of the Top Donors Group. Yet, the scale of needs continues to grow. That is why the 2015 appeals amount to $8.4 billion. The Syria Strategic Response Plan and the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan reflect the needs of countries hit most by the crisis as they address both humanitarian and development needs simultaneously. In addition to life-saving aid, the appeals promote resilience inside and outside Syria. Kuwait III is the opportunity for international community to show generosity and to demonstrate how development and humanitarian assistance can be joined up. I am pleased that so many development partners are showing their solidarity by linking humanitarian and development projects. However, this approach will only succeed if donors follow suit. We have seen the consequences of underfunding: they are catastrophic, leaving neighbouring countries on their own as they struggle to provide for refugees, while meeting their own development needs. There are no simple answers to this merciless conflict. But, we know the best humanitarian solution to end the suffering is a political solution to end the war. Absent a political agreement based on the Geneva Communiqué, the scale and regional impact of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster will only grow. The Syrian people are looking to us. We must deliver. And I thank you for humanitarian leadership and generosity.”