MAN OF THE PEOPLE
Putting people at the centre of everything was the former UN sec-gen’s noble calling
AGLOBAL outpouring of well-deserved tributes marked the passing of Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who died on Aug 18 following a short illness at age 80.
As his UN successor, SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres, said: “In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations.”
Annan was sworn into office in 1997 by none other than distin- UN Secretariat as the Millennium guished Malaysian diplomat, Tan Development Goals in 2001. The Sri Razali Ismail, when the latter initiative contributed to significant was president of the UN General gains in health, education Assembly. Annan served in the and human welfare in many countries top UN post for nine years. around the world. Such was
During his distinguished career its success, the world adopted a and leadership of the UN he was sequel — the even more ambitious an ardent champion of peace, human Sustainable Development Goals rights, and the rule of law. —in 2015.
My tribute to Annan relates to Similarly, the 2002 United Nations his historic legacy as an advocate World Summit on Sustainable of sustainable development, a Development in Johannesburg concept first articulated in 1987 as proved to be one of Annan’s “development that meets the defining moments. In a vital needs of the present without compromising speech to world leaders, he further the ability of future underlined five specific areas generations to meet their own where concrete results are both needs”. Annan’s leadership on the essential and achievable: issue soared during the Millennium Summit in September 2000 when he issued a report entitled We the peoples: the role of the United Nations in the 21st century.
The report called on member states to “put people at the centre of everything we do. No calling is more noble, and no responsibility greater, than that of enabling men, women and children, in cities and villages around the world, to make their lives better”.
In the report’s final chapter, Annan called to “free our fellow men and women from the abject and dehumanising poverty in which more than one billion of them are currently confined”.
The summit adopted the Millennium Declaration, which was subsequently manifested by the
: To provide access to at least one billion people who lack clean drinking water and two billion people who lack proper sanitation
To provide access to more than two billion people who lack modern energy services; promote renewable energy; reduce over-consumption; and ratify the Kyoto protocol to address climate change
To address the effects of toxic and hazardous materials; reduce air pollution which kills three million people each year, and lower the incidence of malaria and African guinea worm, which are linked to polluted water and poor sanitation
To work to reverse land degradation, which affects about two thirds of the world’s agricultural production
To reverse the processes that have destroyed about half the world’s tropical rainforest and mangroves and are threatening 70 per cent of the world’s coral reefs and decimating the world’s fisheries.
Annan’s “WEHAB” agenda (an acronym of the five-point priority list, also given to mean “We inhabit the Earth”) was about having safe, clean water to drink, about utilising energy in a sustainable way in our businesses and industries, about enabling people to have heating, and lighting, and to cook in a way much less damaging to the environment, about good health wherever you live, and about meeting humanity’s land needs while preserving the biodiversity needed by our planet.
It reinforced a global commitment to development to ensure a sustainable relationship between nature’s resources and human needs.
And it resolved to build a humane, equitable and caring global society cognisant of the need for universal human dignity.
Annan has kind words for Malaysia. In a lecture in Kuala Lumpur in 2007, he said, “Malaysia has been a very fortunate country because of the way it has developed from its inception as a nation.
“Malaysia has, uniquely in the annals of empire, a tranquil and orderly transfer of power. Nationalist passion was channelled through town council elections under colonial supervision rather than down the barrel of a gun. This gift of peace has been carefully nurtured and preserved.” His words ring true even today.
In awarding him the Zayed Prize for Global Environmental Leadership in 2005, the jury had this to say about him: “One person has done more than most to catalyse political and public opinion to an understanding that the environment is a fundamental pillar of sustainable development. That person is Mr Kofi Annan.”
He truly was a giant of a man. But full of humility and pragmatism as reflected in this simple quote: “To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.”
As his UN successor, secretary-general Antonio Guterres, said: ‘In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations.’
The writer, a former director at the United Nations University in Tokyo, was co-recipient of the 2014 Zayed International Prize for the Environment (science and technology)