UN General Assembly
2007

three decades of male dominance. I hope that this organ will not again take that long to have an excellent woman as President. Let me now congratulate Mr. Ban Ki-moon of the Republic of Korea on his election as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. I am confident that he will build upon the strong foundation that was laid by his predecessor, Kofi Annan of Ghana, to whom I wish to pay tribute for the manner in which he steered the Organization during his tenure in office. He made Africa proud, and I wish him success in his current and future endeavours. Our world today presents many challenges. These include abject poverty for the majority of the world’s inhabitants, underdevelopment, conflict, human trafficking, climate change, terrorism, violations of human rights, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and gender inequality. While some of these challenges have only recently emerged, others have been with us from time immemorial. These challenges cannot be entirely resolved within national boundaries or at the regional level. They can be resolved only at the multilateral