'Remember this girl'.

• Author: Annan, Kofi
• Position: From the Secretary-General

Today, in Afghanistan, a girl will be born.

Her mother will hold her and feed her; comfort her and care for her--just as any mother would anywhere in the world, In these most basic acts of human nature, humanity knows no divisions.

But to be born a girl in today's Afghanistan is to begin life centuries away from the prosperity that one small part of humanity has achieved, It is to live under conditions that many of us in this hall would consider inhuman.

Truly, it is as if it were a tale of two planets.

I speak of a girl in Afghanistan, but I might equally well have mentioned a baby boy or girl in Sierra Leone. No one today is unaware of this divide between the world's rich and poor. No one today can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on the poor and dispossessed, who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedoms, security, food and education than any of us. The cost, however, is not borne by them alone. Ultimately, it is borne by all of us--North and South, rich and poor, men and women of all races and religions.

Today's real borders are not between nations but between powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated. Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another.

Scientists tell us that the world of nature is so small and interdependent that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can generate a violent storm on the other side of the earth. This principle is known as the "Butterfly Effect". Today, we realize, perhaps more than ever, that the world of human activity also has its own "Butterfly Effect"--for better or for worse.

We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better and we see further, we will realize that humanity is indivisible. New threats make no distinction between races, nations or regions. A new insecurity has entered every mind, regardless of wealth or status. A deeper awareness of the bonds that bind us all--in pain as in prosperity-- has gripped young and old.

In the early beginnings of the 21st century--a century already violently disabused of any hopes that progress towards global peace and prosperity is inevitable--this new reality can no longer be ignored. It must be confronted.

The twentieth century was perhaps the deadliest in human history, devastated by innumerable conflicts, untold suffering and unimaginable crimes. Time after time, a group or a nation inflicted extreme violence on another, often driven by irrational hatred and suspicion, or unbounded arrogance and thirst for power and resources. In response to these cataclysms, the leaders of the world came together at midcentury to unite the nations as never before.

A forum was created--the United Nations--where all nations could join forces to affirm the dignity and worth of every person and to secure peace and development for all peoples. Here, States could unite to strengthen the rule of law, recognize and address the needs of the poor, restrain man's brutality and greed, conserve the resources and beauty of nature, sustain the equal rights of men and women, and provide for the safety of future generations. We thus inherit from the twentieth century the political as well as the scientific and technological power, which--if only we have the will to use them-- give us the chance to vanquish poverty, ignorance and disease.

In the twenty-first century I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity...