Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 1938 in Kumasi - 18 August 2018 in Bern) was a Ghanaian economist. He was the 7th Secretary General of the United Nations between January 1, 1997 and December 31, 2006. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the UN. He was the founder and president of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as president of The Elders, an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.
Annan studied economics at Macalester College, international relations at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, and management at MIT. Annan joined the UN in 1962, working for the Geneva office of the World Health Organization. He continued to work in various positions at United Nations Headquarters, including serving as Assistant Secretary General for peacekeeping between March 1992 and December 1996. He was appointed Secretary General on December 13, 1996 by the Security Council, and later confirmed by the General Assembly, making him the first elected office holder from among the United Nations' own staff. He was re-elected for a second term in 2001 and was succeeded as Secretary General by Ban Ki-moon in 2007.
As Secretary General, Annan reformed the UN bureaucracy, worked to combat HIV/AIDS (particularly in Africa) and launched the UN Global Compact. He was criticized for failing to expand the Security Council and faced criticism for his resignation after an investigation into the Oil-for-Food Program, but was largely exonerated of personal corruption. After the end of his tenure as secretary-general, he founded the Foundation Kofi Annan in 2007 to work in international development. In 2012, Annan was the joint UN–Arab League Special Representative for Syria, to help find a resolution to the ongoing conflict there. Annan resigned after becoming frustrated with the UN's lack of progress on the resolution. of conflicts. In September 2016, Annan was appointed to lead a UN commission to investigate the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis. He died in 2018 and was given a state funeral.
Biography
Early Years
He was born on April 8, 1938 in Kumasi, on what was then the British Gold Coast, now Ghana. His name indicates the day of the week he was born, thus in Twi and Fante (the languages of his parents) Kofi means born on Friday; Atta expresses that he is one of two twins and Annan means that he is the fourth son.
Thanks to his family's privileged situation, he was able to study Economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology and furthered his studies in the United States and Switzerland, obtaining various postgraduate and master's degrees in Economics.
Jobs at the United Nations
In 1962 he started working at the World Health Organization, an agency dependent on the UN. But between 1974 and 1976, he worked as director of Tourism for his own country.
He later returned to the United Nations as Assistant Secretary General in three different stages: as Human Resources and Security Coordinator between 1987 and 1990, as Controller of the Planning and Finance Program between 1990 and 1991 and as Coordinator of Security Operations. UN Peacekeepers between March 1993 and February 1994.
Annan was appointed deputy secretary-general in October 1995 and sent as special representative of the UN secretary-general to Yugoslavia, returning to UN headquarters in New York in April 1996.
Secretary-General of the United Nations (1997-2006)
Appointment
In 1996, Egyptian Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali ran unopposed for a second term. Although he won 14 of the 15 votes of the UN Security Council, he was vetoed by the United States. After four deadlocked Security Council meetings, Boutros-Ghali suspended his candidacy, becoming the only Secretary General to be He has been denied a second term. Annan was the leading candidate to replace him, beating Amara Essy by one vote in the first round. However, France vetoed Annan four times before finally abstaining. The UN Security Council recommended Annan on December 13, 1996. Confirmed four days later by a General Assembly vote, he began his first term as Secretary General on January 1, 1997. Annan's election, Promoted by the United States, it thus broke the rotary wheel between continents and made Annan the first black man to occupy the General Secretariat.
Due to the ouster of Boutros-Ghali, a second term for Annan would give Africa the position of Secretary-General for three consecutive terms. In 2001, the Asia-Pacific Group agreed to support Annan for a second term in exchange for the African Group supporting an Asian Secretary-General in the 2006 United Nations Secretary-General selection. The Security Council recommended Annan for a second term on June 27, 2001, and the General Assembly approved his new appointment on June 29, 2001.
Activities
During his tenure, his priority was planning the reform of the United Nations, his first major initiative being the presentation of the so-called Reform Plan for the Renewal of the United Nations. Likewise, he repeatedly spoke out in favor of actively fighting AIDS, becoming a high priority for his government. On January 1, 2002, his mandate was renewed by the Security Council, as well as by the General Assembly until December 31, 2006. In 2003, he spoke out against the invasion of Iraq by the governments of the United States and the UK, and in 2004 found it illegal.
Recommendations for UN reform
Shortly after taking office in 1997, Annan published two reports on management reform. On March 17, 1997, the report Management and Organizational Measures (A/51/829) introduced new management mechanisms by establishing a cabinet-like body to assist it and UN activities to deal with four basic missions. A comprehensive reform agenda entitled Renewing the United Nations: A Reform Agenda (A/51/950) was published on 14 July 1997. Major proposals included the introduction of strategic management to strengthen unity of purpose, the creation of the position of Deputy Secretary General, a 10% reduction in posts, a reduction in administrative costs, consolidation of the United Nations to national level and the approach to civil society and the private sector as partners. Annan also proposed holding a Millennium Summit in 2000. After years of research, Annan presented a status report, In Larger Freedom, to the UN General Assembly on March 21, 2005. Annan recommended expanding the Security Council and other UN reforms.
On 31 January 2006, Annan outlined his vision for comprehensive UN reform in a political speech to the United Nations Association UK. The speech, delivered at Central Hall, Westminster, also commemorated the 60th anniversary of the first meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council.
On March 7, 2006, he presented to the General Assembly his proposals for a fundamental reform of the United Nations Secretariat. The reform report is titled Investing in the United Nations, for a stronger organization around the world.
On March 30, 2006, he presented to the General Assembly his analysis and recommendations to update the entire work program of the United Nations Secretariat. The report on the reform is entitled Mandating and Delivering: Analysis and recommendations to facilitate the review of mandates.
As for the UN Human Rights Council, Annan said that "loss of credibility" had 'tarnished the reputation of the United Nations system. Unless we remake our human rights machinery, we may be unable to renew public confidence in the United Nations itself." However, he believed that despite its flaws, the Council could do some good.
In March 2000, Annan appointed the UN Peacekeeping Operations Panel to assess the deficiencies of the then-existing system and make concrete and realistic recommendations for change. The group was made up of people with experience in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The report he produced, which became known as the Brahimi Report, after the chairman of the Lakhdar Brahimi Group, called for:
- renewed political commitment by member States;
- significant institutional change;
- increased financial support.
The Group further noted that, to be effective, UN peacekeeping operations must be adequately resourced and equipped, and operate under clear, credible and achievable mandates. In a letter transmitting the report to the General Assembly and the Security Council, Annan stated that the Panel's recommendations were essential for the United Nations to be truly credible as a peacekeeping force. Later that year, the Security Council adopted several peacekeeping-related provisions in the wake of the report, in Resolution 1327.
Millennium Development Goals
In 2000, Annan published a report entitled "We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century". The report calls on Member States to "put people at the center of everything we do": "There is no nobler calling and no greater responsibility than to enable men, women and children, in cities and towns around the world, to improve their lives"
In the final chapter of the report, Annan called for "freeing our fellow men and women from the abject and dehumanizing poverty in which more than 1 billion of them are currently confined".
At the Millennium Summit in September 2000, national leaders adopted the Millennium Declaration, which was subsequently implemented by the United Nations Secretariat as the Millennium Development Goals in 2001.
United Nations Information Technology Service
In the document We the Peoples, Annan suggested the creation of a United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), a consortium of high-tech volunteer corps, including NetCorps Canada and Net Corps America, which would coordinate United Nations Volunteers (UNV). In the "Report of the high-level group of experts on information and communication technologies", suggesting a United Nations Task Force on ICTs, the group welcomed the creation of UNITeS and made suggestions on its configuration and implementation strategy, including that ICT for development volunteering opportunities make the mobilization of "national human resources" (local ICT experts) within developing countries a priority for both men and women. The initiative was launched under UNV and was active from February 2001 to February 2005. The initiative's staff and volunteers participated in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held in Geneva in December 2003.
United Nations Global Compact
In a speech to the World Economic Forum on January 31, 1999, Annan argued that "the goals of the United Nations and those of business can, in fact, be mutually supportive" and proposed that the private sector and the United Nations initiate "a global compact of shared values and principles, which will give a human face to the world market".
On July 26, 2000, the United Nations Global Compact was officially launched at the UN headquarters in New York. It is a principle-based framework for business that aims to "[c]attach actions in support of broader UN goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)". The Pact established ten basic principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and under the Compact, companies commit to the ten principles and meet with UN bodies, labor groups and civil society to apply them effectively.
Creation of the Global Fund
Toward the end of the 1990s, increased awareness of the destructive potential of epidemics such as HIV/AIDS pushed public health issues to the forefront of the global development agenda. In April 2001, Annan issued a "Call to Action" of five points to deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Declaring it a "personal priority," Annan proposed the creation of a Global AIDS and Health Fund, "dedicated to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases" 34;, to stimulate the increased international spending needed to help developing countries cope with the HIV/AIDS crisis. In June of that year, the United Nations General Assembly committed to creating such a fund during a special session on AIDS, and subsequently, in January 2002, the permanent secretariat of the Global Fund was created.
Responsibility to Protect
Following the failure of Annan and the international community to intervene in the Rwandan genocide and in Srebrenica, Annan wondered if the international community had an obligation, in such situations, to intervene to protect the population civil. In a speech to the General Assembly on September 20, 1999, "to address the prospects for human security and intervention in the next century", Annan argued that individual sovereignty-the protections granted by the Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter-was getting stronger, while the notion of state sovereignty was being redefined by globalization and international cooperation. As a consequence, the UN and its Member States had to consider the willingness to act to prevent conflicts and the suffering of the civilian population, a dilemma between "two concepts of sovereignty" which Annan also presented in an earlier article in The Economist on September 16, 1999.
In September 2001, the Canadian government created an ad hoc committee to address this balance between state sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty published its final report in 2001, which did not focus on the right of States to intervene, but on the responsibility to protect endangered populations. The report went beyond the issue of military intervention, arguing that a range of diplomatic and humanitarian actions could also be used to protect civilian populations.
In 2005, Annan included the doctrine of the "Responsibility to Protect" (RtoP) in its report A Wider Concept of Freedom. When that report was approved by the UN General Assembly, it marked the first formal endorsement by UN member states of the doctrine of the RdP.
Iraq
In the years after 1998, when UNSCOM was ousted by Saddam Hussein's government, and during the Iraq disarmament crisis, in which the United States blamed UNSCOM and former IAEA Director Hans Blix for failing to disarm properly to Iraq, former UNSCOM chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter blamed Annan for slowness and ineffectiveness in enforcing Security Council resolutions on Iraq and openly complied with the Clinton administration's demands for the removal of the regime and inspection of sites, often presidential palaces, that were not covered by any resolution and of dubious value to intelligence services, severely hampering UNSCOM's ability to cooperate with the Iraqi government and contributing to its expulsion from the Iraqi government. country. Ritter also claimed that Annan regularly interfered with the inspectors' work and diluted the chain of command by attempting to micromanage all UNSCOM activities, causing delays in intelligence processing (and resulting inspections). and it caused confusion among the Iraqis as to who was in command, and as a consequence, they generally refused to take orders from Ritter or Rolf Ekéus without Annan's explicit approval, which could take days, if not weeks. He later believed that Annan did not realize that the Iraqis were taking advantage of this to delay inspections. He claimed that Annan once refused to carry out an unannounced inspection of the Iraqi Special Organization for Security (OES) headquarters and instead tried to negotiate access, but the negotiation ended up lasting almost six weeks, giving the Iraqis more than enough time to clean up the site.
During the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Annan called on the United States and the United Kingdom not to invade without United Nations support. In a September 2004 interview with the BBC, when asked about the legal authority of the invasion, Annan said that he believed it did not conform to the UN Charter and that it was illegal.
Other diplomatic activities
In 1998, Annan became heavily involved in supporting the transition from military to civilian rule in Nigeria. The following year, he supported East Timor's efforts to gain independence from Indonesia. In 2000, he was responsible for certifying Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, and in 2006, he led talks in New York between the presidents of Cameroon and Nigeria that led to an agreement on the dispute between the two countries over the Bakassi Peninsula..
Annan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disagreed sharply over Iran's nuclear program, over an Iranian exhibition of cartoons mocking the Holocaust, and over the then-upcoming International Conference to Review the Global View of the Holocaust, an Iranian denial conference. of the Holocaust in 2006. During a visit to Iran abetted by the continued enrichment of Iranian uranium, Annan said: "I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is an undeniable historical fact and we really should accept that fact and teach people what it is." happened in World War II and make sure it never happens again."
Annan supported sending a UN peacekeeping mission to Darfur, Sudan. He worked with the Sudanese government to accept the transfer of power from the African Union Peacekeeping Mission to a UN mission. Annan has also worked with several Arab and Muslim countries on women's rights and other issues.
Beginning in 1998, Annan called a "Security Council Retreat" meeting of the UN with the representatives of the 15 states of the council. It was held at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) Conference Center on the Rockefeller family estate in Pocantico Hills, New York, and was sponsored by both the RBF and the UN.
Lubbers Investigation into Sexual Harassment
In June 2004, Annan received a copy of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report on the complaint filed by four female workers against Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for sexual harassment, abuse of authority and reprisals. The report also examined allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct by a former staff member against Werner Blatter, UNHCR's director of personnel. The investigation found Lubbers guilty of sexual harassment; there was no public mention of the other accusation against a senior official, nor of two subsequent complaints filed that same year. In the course of the official investigation, Lubbers wrote a letter that some considered a threat to the worker who had made the allegations. On July 15, 2004, Annan cleared Lubbers of the allegations, claiming they did not have sufficient legal status. The internal OIOS report on Lubbers was leaked, and sections accompanied by an article by Kate Holt were published in a British newspaper. In February 2005, Lubbers resigned as head of the UN Refugee Agency, saying he wanted to ease political pressure on Annan.
"Oil for Food" Scandal
In December 2004, reports emerged that Secretary-General Kojo Annan's son had received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection SA, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN's Oil-for-Food Programme. Kofi Annan called for the allegations to be investigated. On 11 November 2005, The Sunday Times agreed to apologize and pay large damages to Kojo Annan, accepting that the allegations were false..
Annan appointed the Independent Committee of Inquiry, which was led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, then head of the United Nations Association of America. In his first interview with the Commission of Inquiry, Annan denied having met with Cotecna. Later in the investigation, he recalled that he had met Cotecna CEO Elie-Georges Massey on two occasions. In a final report released on October 27, the commission found insufficient evidence to charge Annan with any illegal actions, but it did find fault with Benon Sevan, a Cypriot-Armenian citizen who had worked for the UN for some 40 years. Appointed by Annan to the role of Oil for Food, Sevan repeatedly asked Iraqis to allocate oil to the African Middle East Petroleum Company. Sevan's behavior was "ethically improper," Volcker told reporters. Sevan repeatedly denied the accusations and claimed that he was being made a "scapegoat" for him.The Volcker report strongly criticized the UN management structure and Security Council oversight. He strongly recommended the creation of a new chief operating officer (COO) position, to manage the fiscal and administrative responsibilities that then fell under the office of the Secretary General. The report listed companies, both Western and Middle Eastern, that had illegally profited from the program.
Nobel Peace Prize
In 2001, the year of its centenary, the Nobel Committee decided that the Peace Prize should be divided between the UN and Annan. They were awarded the Peace Prize "for their work towards a better organized and more peaceful world", for having revitalized the UN and for having given priority to human rights. The Nobel Committee also recognized his commitment to the fight to contain the spread of HIV in Africa and his declared opposition to international terrorism.
Shortly after Annan received the Peace Prize, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II, bestowed on him the title of Busumuru. Her honor was bestowed for her "[disinterested] contributions to humanity and the promotion of peace throughout the world."
US-UN Relations
Annan defended his deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch Brown, who was vocally critical of the United States in a speech on June 6, 2006: "[T]he prevailing practice of trying to use the UN almost on the sly as a tool Diplomacy without defending itself against its internal critics is simply untenable. He will lose the UN one way or another. [...] [That] the US engages constructively with the UN [...] is not well known or understood, in part because much of the public discourse that gets to the heart of the US has been abandoned much to his more vocal detractors like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News." Malloch later said his talk was a "candid and constructive critique of US policy towards the UN by a friend and admirer".
The talk was unusual in that it violated the unofficial policy of not publicly criticizing member countries. Acting US Ambassador John Bolton, appointed by President George W. Bush, told Annan over the phone: "I have known him since 1989 and I tell him this is the worst mistake by a senior UN official I have seen in all that time" Observers from other nations supported Malloch's view that conservative politicians in The US prevented many citizens from understanding the benefits of US participation in the UN.
Farewell Speeches
On September 19, 2006, Annan delivered a farewell address to world leaders gathered at UN headquarters in New York, in anticipation of his December 31 retirement. In the speech, he outlined three major problems: "an unfair world economy, global disorder, and widespread disregard for human rights and the rule of law," which, in his opinion, "did not have resolved, but have worsened" during his tenure as Secretary General. He also pointed to the violence in Africa and the Arab-Israeli conflict as two major issues that deserved attention.
On December 11, 2006, in his final address as Secretary General, delivered at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, Annan recalled President Truman's leadership in founding the United Nations. He called for the United States to return to Truman's multilateralist foreign policy, and to follow Truman's credo that "the responsibility of great states is to serve and not to dominate the people of the world." He also asserted that the United States must uphold its commitment to human rights, "including in the fight against terrorism."
Awards
Together with the UN itself, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 for his work for a better organized and more peaceful world.
In 2012 he was awarded the Confucius Peace Prize for "his enormous contribution to the reform and revival of the United Nations" and as special envoy of the UN and the Arab League in Syria.
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