Cover image: Kofi Annan meets with high-school students in Kabul, Afghanistan, in January 2002. Copyright © Chien-min Chung/Getty Photos
About the Conference
In the run-up to the UN’s 75th anniversary and almost a year after his death, Chatham House and the United Nations Association – UK (UNA-UK) held a two-day conference to explore Kofi Annan’s legacy in the context of the current period of global uncertainty.
The ‘Our Shared Humanity’ conference brought together a global and diverse group of individuals working on peace and security, human rights and development issues to:
- Reflect critically on Annan’s record, and capture lessons learned from his tenure as UN secretary-general, and his later work as a mediator and elder statesperson; and
- Generate recommendations for current policymakers and influencers.
This paper summarizes key points raised during each session of the conference, and presents the substantive recommendations that emerged from the discussion.
In order to bring the conference themes to a wider audience, UNA-UK held a public event at the end of the first day of the conference at Central Hall Westminster – where the UN had held its first ever meetings in 1946 – with speakers including Nane Annan, Sherrie Westin (president of global impact and philanthropy, Sesame Workshop), Amina Mohammed (current UN deputy secretary-general) and Mary Robinson (chair of The Elders and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights).