The Voice for the Voiceless — On Unity and Global Leadership with the Honorable Ban Ki-moon
By Sohini Mukherjee
The United Nations, an organization no less complex or challenging than the world it leads, is comprised of all member states of the international community, and serves the world’s people based on three principles in its charter. The United Nations seeks to maintain peace and security, to support everyone in terms of development, and make certain that human rights and dignity are protected for all. These three principles provided guidance and inspiration to the Honorable Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, who acted as the voice of voiceless people, and defender of defenseless people.
The Honorable Ban Ki-moon served as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations in two consecutive terms from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2016. As Secretary-General, he focused on mobilizing world leaders around a set of new global challenges, from climate change and economic upheaval, to pandemics and increasing pressures involving food, energy, and water. Ban has worked tirelessly to advance the world’s main anti-poverty targets, the Millennium Development Goals, with a special emphasis on Africa and women’s and children’s health. Globally, he has galvanized partners from across the international stage to give a voice to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, and strengthen the United Nations. Joining the Voices in Leadership Series at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on May 16, 2017, the Honorable Ban Ki-moon spoke to Dr. Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, about the “great privilege” of serving the United Nations and how unity and global leadership are needed to tackle the world’s biggest challenges in service of the 7.3 billion people around the world.
Uniting to Succeed
The former Secretary-General spoke at length about several initiatives and crises that he had been involved with during his time in office. For each, he highlighted how necessary it was for world leaders to compromise and present a united front to protect the future health of the global community, saying
“When the United Nations is united, we can deliver a lot, we can save many human lives. But when the United Nations is divided…then unfortunately, we have seen so many tragic situations.”
Ban cited the example of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, one of “the proudest visions” the United Nations has presented to the world, as an example of the success of countries uniting, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria as a failure of when they do not. He cautioned the future health leaders in the room to take these lessons and apply them to improving the global preparedness of international organizations to combat epidemics like Ebola and Zika.
On Global and Local Governance
There was one topic on which the former Secretary-General was particularly emphatic on the urgency to act– the “very serious and tragic phenomenon” caused by climate change. He described how global leaders worked closely together on the Paris Agreement, as they recognized that climate change should be one of our most vitally important goals as a global community, and that “we cannot wait for nature to wait for us.” Ban also highlighted the important role that the United States plays in fighting climate change and his concerns with recent changes in federal leadership, saying,
“If the US does not implement [the Paris Agreement], or if they withdraw, then this will be a devastating impact to this global vision. This is not an issue of the American political administration or president, this is something about humanity, this is something about our planet Earth.”
Nevertheless, he remains encouraged, characterizing the actions of local players like state governors, mayors, and businesses as a “strong commitment” to this common goal, thereby underlining how achieving global goals is only possible through strong local leadership.
Defining and Inspiring Leadership
When speaking to the contributions the academic community can make to alleviating humanitarian crises like that of Syria, Ban continued to highlight the voices of the 135 million people globally who need lifesaving assistance. He encouraged institutions to foster global visions in their students, and asked students to learn to be global citizens.
Acknowledging that while professional knowledge and career may be very important, this professional capacity could be, and should be, utilized for common humanity. Ban also spoke to how future generations must approach leadership, and how if those in leadership act with a compassionate vision, then a lot of positive results can be delivered. Ban defined leadership as listening carefully to the voices of the people, and trying to find out and address their concerns and aspirations. He continued to define leadership, saying,
“When you talk about leadership, people have a tendency of believing that leadership is something great and big. But each and every student, each and every professor, has their own leadership style. When you really motivate your students, and inspire your students, I think they can become great leaders of the world, or their countries in the future.”
For more from the Voices in Leadership (@VoicesHSPH) series at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (@HarvardHSPH), visit www.hsph.harvard.edu/voices.
Story by Sohini Mukherjee, a first year student in the Master of Science program in Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, interested in gender equity, maternal health, and health policy and governance.
