Late for­mer Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Kofi An­nan cham­pi­oned is­sues at the UN in­clud­ing pro­mo­tion of gen­der equal­i­ty and em­pow­er­ment of women which are aligned with the pri­or­i­ties of UN mem­bers, in­clud­ing T&T, at the mul­ti­lat­er­al lev­el.

The Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed this yes­ter­day in a re­lease on the pass­ing of the for­mer UN sec­re­tary gen­er­al and No­bel Peace Prize Lau­re­ate.

He was a de­scribed as a cham­pi­on of hu­man­i­ty. The UN’s first black Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, An­nan, 80, died in Switzer­land af­ter a brief ill­ness on Sat­ur­day. The OPM not­ed An­nan’s pri­or­i­ties al­so in­clud­ed peace and se­cu­ri­ty, de­vel­op­ment, pover­ty re­duc­tion, com­bat­ing cli­mate change, pre­vent­ing the spread of in­fec­tious dis­eases, com­bat­ing ter­ror­ism as well as the pro­mo­tion of gen­der equal­i­ty and the em­pow­er­ment of women.

“His lega­cy in­cludes agree­ment to the Mil­len­ni­um De­vel­op­ment Goals and the Unit­ed Na­tions’ con­fronta­tion of the HIV/AIDS epi­dem­ic. Mr An­nan played a sig­nif­i­cant role in ad­vanc­ing the ideals of the Unit­ed Na­tions through the pro­mo­tion of an agen­da of peace, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, hu­man rights and the rule of law.”

“T&T not on­ly shares the loss of Mr An­nan with the world but par­tic­u­lar­ly with the African re­gion and coun­tries of the Glob­al South. It is a source of pride Mr An­nan was a promi­nent African mul­ti­lat­er­al­ist of Ghana­ian de­scent who rose through the ranks of the Unit­ed Na­tions to lead the or­gan­i­sa­tion for two terms from 1997 to 2006.”

“Kofi An­nan in­fused his ser­vice to the world as UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al with self­less com­mit­ment to the em­pow­er­ment of all peo­ple, equal­i­ty, the pro­mo­tion of hu­man rights, jus­tice and peace. Dur­ing his tenure, he met the chal­lenges of the Of­fice bold­ly, ad­dress­ing var­i­ous is­sues and crises fac­ing the world with diplo­mat­ic acu­men and com­pas­sion, bring­ing to bear his ex­pe­ri­ence with­in the UN sys­tem to yield the best pos­si­ble out­come in every sit­u­a­tion.” (GA)