UN General Assembly
2006

part of the world, the selection procedure should not restrict the rights and opportunities of potential candidates from any other part of the world. I hope that the choice made by the Security Council and the General Assembly will be based solely on the candidate’s qualifications, personal qualities and vision. The world needs a strong United Nations, and we as leaders need to build bridges of understanding if we are to make the United Nations as strong as it needs to be. We need to keep alive the main goal of the founders of the United Nations, who were determined “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. We owe it to our children, who will inherit this planet, to save them also from the scourges of terrorism, of hunger and of disease. Because of my own personal experience as a child of war and a refugee, having known fear, cold, loss and hunger in my time, I urge world leaders to save every child that we can from such experiences.