Animated, color-coded map showing various continents and regions. Depending on the convention and model, some continents may be consolidated or subdivided: for example, Eurasia is often subdivided into Europe and Asia (red shades), while North and South America are sometimes recognized as one American continent (green shades).

A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are (from largest in size to smallest): Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.^[1]

Plate tectonics is the geological process and study of the movement, collision and division of continents, earlier known as continental drift.

Definitions and application[link]

Dymaxion maps shows land masses with minimal distortion

Conventionally, "continents are understood to be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water."^[2] Many of the seven most commonly recognized continents identified by convention are not discrete landmasses separated by water. The criterion "large" leads to arbitrary classification: Greenland, with a surface area of 2,166,086 square kilometres (836,330 sq mi) is considered the world's largest island, while Australia, at 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi) is deemed to be a continent. Likewise, the ideal criterion that each be a continuous landmass is often disregarded by the inclusion of the continental shelf and oceanic islands, and contradicted by classifying North and South America as two continents; and/or Eurasia and Africa as two continents, with no natural separation by water. This anomaly reaches its extreme if the continuous land mass of Europe and Asia is considered to constitute two continents. The Earth's major landmasses are washed upon by a single, continuous world ocean, which is divided into a number of principal oceanic components by the continents and various geographic criteria.^[3][4]

Residents of Britain and Ireland sometimes refer to Continental Europe, that is, the mainland of Europe, excluding the British Isles,^[5] Iceland and some other islands, as "the Continent".

Extent of continents[link]

The narrowest meaning of continent is that of a continuous^[6] area of land or mainland, with the coastline and any land boundaries forming the edge of the continent. In this sense the term continental Europe is used to refer to mainland Europe, excluding islands such as Great Britain, Ireland, and Iceland, and the term continent of Australia may refer to the mainland of Australia, excluding Tasmania and New Guinea. Similarly, the continental United States refers to the 48 contiguous states in central North America and may include Alaska in the northwest of the continent (the two being separated by Canada), while excluding Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

From the perspective of geology or physical geography, continent may be extended beyond the confines of continuous dry land to include the shallow, submerged adjacent area (the continental shelf)^[7] and the islands on the shelf (continental islands), as they are structurally part of the continent.^[8] From this perspective the edge of the continental shelf is the true edge of the continent, as shorelines vary with changes in sea level.^[9] In this sense the islands of Great Britain and Ireland are part of Europe, while Australia and the island of New Guinea together form a continent.

As a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this way, Iceland is considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa. Extrapolating the concept to its extreme, some geographers group the Australasian continental plate with other islands in the Pacific into one continent called Oceania. This allows the entire land surface of the Earth to be divided into continents or quasi-continents.^[10]

Separation of continents[link]

Map of island countries: these states are often grouped geographically with a neighboring continental landmass

The ideal criterion that each continent be a discrete landmass is commonly disregarded in favor of more arbitrary, historical conventions. Of the seven most commonly recognized continents, only Antarctica and Australia are distinctly separated from other continents.

Several continents are defined not as absolutely distinct bodies but as "more or less discrete masses of land".^[11] Asia and Africa are joined by the Isthmus of Suez, and North and South America by the Isthmus of Panama. Both these isthmuses are very narrow in comparison with the bulk of the landmasses they join, and both are transected by artificial canals (the Suez and Panama canals, respectively) which effectively separate these landmasses.

The division of the landmass of Eurasia into the continents of Asia and Europe is an anomaly, as no sea separates them. The alternative view, that Eurasia is a single continent, results in a six-continent view of the world. This view is held in geology and geography. The separation of Eurasia into Europe and Asia is viewed by some as a residue of Eurocentrism: "In physical, cultural and historical diversity, China and India are comparable to the entire European landmass, not to a single European country. A better (if still imperfect) analogy would compare France, not to India as a whole, but to a single Indian state, such as Uttar Pradesh."^{[12][clarification needed]} However, for historical and cultural reasons, the view of Europe as a separate continent continues in several categorizations.

North America and South America are treated as separate continents in the seven-continent model. However, they may also be viewed as a single continent known as America. This viewpoint was common in the United States until World War II, and remains prevalent in some Asian six-continent models.^[13] This remains the more common vision in Spain, Portugal and Latin American countries, where they are taught as a single continent. This use is shown in names such as the Organization of American States. From the 19th century some people used the term "Americas" to avoid ambiguity with the United States of America.

When continents are defined as discrete landmasses, embracing all the contiguous land of a body, then Asia, Europe and Africa form a single continent known by various names such as Afro-Eurasia. This produces a four-continent model consisting of Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia.

When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, greater areas of continental shelf were exposed as dry land, forming land bridges. At this time Australia-New Guinea was a single, continuous continent. Likewise the Americas and Afro-Eurasia were joined by the Bering land bridge. Other islands such as Great Britain were joined to the mainlands of their continents. At that time there were just three discrete continents: Afro-Eurasia-America, Antarctica, and Australia-New Guinea.

Number of continents[link]

There are numerous ways of distinguishing the continents:

Models
Color-coded map showing the various continents. Similar shades exhibit areas that may be consolidated or subdivided.
7 continents [1][14][15][16][17][18]	North America	South America	Antarctica	Africa	Europe	Asia	Australia
6 continents [15][19]	North America	South America	Antarctica	Africa	Eurasia		Australia
6 continents[20]	America		Antarctica	Africa	Europe	Asia	Australia
5 continents [19][21][22]	America		Antarctica	Africa	Eurasia		Australia
4 continents[dubious – discuss]	America		Antarctica	Afro-Eurasia			Australia

• The seven-continent model is usually taught in China, India and most English-speaking countries.
• The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is sometimes preferred in the former states of the USSR^{[citation needed]} and Japan^{[citation needed]}.
• The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America^{[citation needed]} and in some parts of Europe including Greece (equivalent 5 inhabited continents model (i.e. excluding Antarctica) still also found in texts),^[20] Portugal^{[citation needed]} and Spain^{[citation needed]}.

Using this latter model as a starting point, the Olympics use only inhabited continents (excluding Antarctica) and thus a five-continent model^[21][22] as depicted in the Olympic logo.^[23]

The terms Oceania or Australasia are sometimes substituted for Australia to denote a continent encompassing the Australian mainland and various islands of the Pacific Ocean not part of other continents. For example, the Atlas of Canada names Oceania,^[14] as does the model taught in Italy, Greece^[20] and in Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Area and population[link]

Comparison of area and population

The following table summarises the area and population of each continent using the seven continent model, sorted by decreasing area.^[24]

The total land area of all continents is 148,647,000 square kilometres (57,393,000 sq mi), or 29.1% of earth's surface (510,065,600 square kilometres / 196,937,400 square miles).

A rough estimate of the total population of all the continents is 7,000,000,000.

Highest and lowest points[link]

The following table lists the seven continents with their highest and lowest points on land, sorted in decreasing highest points.

Continent	Highest point	Height (m)	Height (ft)	Country or territory containing highest point	Lowest point	Depth (m)	Depth (ft)	Country or territory containing lowest point
Asia	Mount Everest	8,848	29,029	China and  Nepal	Dead Sea	-422	−1,384.5	Israel,  Jordan and  Palestine
South America	Aconcagua	6,960	22,830	Argentina	Laguna del Carbón	-105	−344.5	Argentina
North America	Mount McKinley	6,198	20,335	United States	Death Valley †	-86	−282.2	United States
Africa	Mount Kilimanjaro	5,895	19,341	Tanzania	Lake Assal	-155	−508.5	Djibouti
Europe	Mount Elbrus	5,633	18,481	Russia	Caspian Sea	-28	−91.9	Russia and, depending on the Europe-Asia boundary chosen,  Azerbaijan and/or  Kazakhstan
Antarctica	Vinson Massif	4,892	16,050	Antarctica	Deep Lake, Vestfold Hills †	-50	−164.0	Antarctica
Australia	Puncak Jaya	4,884	16,024	Indonesia (Papua)	Lake Eyre	-15	−49.2	Australia

† The lowest exposed points are given for North America and Antarctica. The lowest non-submarine bedrock elevations in these continents are the trough beneath Jakobshavn Isbræ (−1,512 metres (−4,960.6 ft)^[26]) and Bentley Subglacial Trench (−2,540 metres (−8,333.3 ft)), but these are covered by kilometers of ice.

Some sources list the Kuma-Manych Depression (a remnant of the Paratethys) as the geological border between Europe and Asia. This would place the Caucasus outside of Europe, thus making Mont Blanc (elevation 4810 m) in the Graian Alps the highest point in Europe - the lowest point would still be the shore of the Caspian Sea.

Other divisions[link]

Aside from the conventionally known continents, the scope and meaning of the term 'continent' may vary. Supercontinents, largely in evidence earlier in the geological record, are landmasses which comprise more than one craton or continental core. These have included Laurasia, Gondwana, Vaalbara, Kenorland, Columbia, Rodinia, and Pangaea.

Certain parts of continents are recognized as subcontinents, particularly those on different tectonic plates to the rest of the continent. The most notable examples are the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula. Greenland, generally reckoned as the world's largest island on the northeastern periphery of the North American Plate, is sometimes referred to as a subcontinent. Where the Americas are viewed as a single continent (America), it is divided into two subcontinents (North America and South America)^[27][28][29] or various regions.^[30]

Some areas of continental crust are largely covered by the sea and may be considered submerged continents. Notable examples are Zealandia, emerging from the sea primarily in New Zealand and New Caledonia, and the almost completely submerged Kerguelen continent in the southern Indian Ocean.

Some islands lie on sections of continental crust that have rifted and drifted apart from a main continental landmass. While not considered continents because of their relatively small size, they may be considered microcontinents. Madagascar, the largest example, is usually considered an island of Africa but has been referred to as "the eighth continent" from a biological perspective.^[31]

History of the concept[link]

Early concepts of the Old World continents[link]

The Ancient Greek geographer Strabo holding a globe showing Europa and Asia

Medieval T and O map showing the three continents as domains of the sons of Noah—Sem (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth) and Cham (Ham)

The first distinction between continents was made by ancient Greek mariners who gave the names Europe and Asia to the lands on either side of the waterways of the Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles strait, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus strait and the Black Sea.^[32] The names were first applied just to lands near the coast and only later extended to include the hinterlands.^[33] But the division was only carried through to the end of navigable waterways and "... beyond that point the Hellenic geographers never succeeded in laying their finger on any inland feature in the physical landscape that could offer any convincing line for partitioning an indivisible Eurasia ..."^[32]

Ancient Greek thinkers subsequently debated whether Africa (then called Libya) should be considered part of Asia or a third part of the world. Division into three parts eventually came to predominate.^[34] From the Greek viewpoint, the Aegean Sea was the center of the world; Asia lay to the east, Europe to the west and north and Africa to the south.^[35] The boundaries between the continents were not fixed. Early on, the Europe–Asia boundary was taken to run from the Black Sea along the Rioni River (known then as the Phasis) in Georgia. Later it was viewed as running from the Black Sea through Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and along the Don River (known then as the Tanais) in Russia.^[36] The boundary between Asia and Africa was generally taken to be the Nile River. Herodotus^[37] in the 5th century BC, however, objected to the unity of Egypt being split into Asia and Africa ("Libya") and took the boundary to lie along the western border of Egypt, regarding Egypt as part of Asia. He also questioned the division into three of what is really a single landmass,^[38] a debate that continues nearly two and a half millennia later.

Eratosthenes, in the 3rd century BC, noted that some geographers divided the continents by rivers (the Nile and the Don), thus considering them "islands". Others divided the continents by isthmuses, calling the continents "peninsulas". These latter geographers set the border between Europe and Asia at the isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and the border between Asia and Africa at the isthmus between the Red Sea and the mouth of Lake Bardawil on the Mediterranean Sea.^[39]

Through the Roman period and the Middle Ages, a few writers took the Isthmus of Suez as the boundary between Asia and Africa, but most writers continued to take it to be the Nile or the western border of Egypt (Gibbon). In the Middle Ages the world was usually portrayed on T and O maps, with the T representing the waters dividing the three continents. By the middle of the 18th century, "the fashion of dividing Asia and Africa at the Nile, or at the Great Catabathmus [the boundary between Egypt and Libya] farther west, had even then scarcely passed away".^[40]

European arrival in the Americas[link]

Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies in 1492, sparking a period of European exploration of the Americas. But despite four voyages to the Americas, Columbus never believed he had reached a new continent—he always thought it was part of Asia.

In 1501, Amerigo Vespucci and Gonçalo Coelho attempted to sail around what they considered to be the southern end of the Asian mainland into the Indian Ocean, passing through the Matsackson Islands. After reaching the coast of Brazil, they sailed a long way further south along the coast of South America, confirming that this was a land of continental proportions and that it also extended much further south than Asia was known to.^[41] On return to Europe, an account of the voyage, called Mundus Novus ("New World"), was published under Vespucci’s name in 1502 or 1503,^[42] although it seems that it had additions or alterations by another writer.^[43] Regardless of who penned the words, Mundus Novus attributed Vespucci with saying, "I have discovered a continent in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous people and animals than our Europe, or Asia or Africa",^[44] the first known explicit identification of part of the Americas as a continent like the other three.

Universalis Cosmographia, Waldseemüller's 1507 world map which was the first to show the Americas separate from Asia

Within a few years the name "New World" began appearing as a name for South America on world maps, such as the Oliveriana (Pesaro) map of around 1504–1505. Maps of this time though still showed North America connected to Asia and showed South America as a separate land.^[43]

In 1507 Martin Waldseemüller published a world map, Universalis Cosmographia, which was the first to show North and South America as separate from Asia and surrounded by water. A small inset map above the main map explicitly showed for the first time the Americas being east of Asia and separated from Asia by an ocean, as opposed to just placing the Americas on the left end of the map and Asia on the right end. In the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, Waldseemüller noted that the earth is divided into four parts, Europe, Asia, Africa and the fourth part which he named "America" after Amerigo Vespucci's first name.^[45] On the map, the word "America" was placed on part of South America.

[edit] The word continent

From the 16th century the English noun continent was derived from the term continent land, meaning continuous or connected land^[46] and translated from the Latin terra continens.^[47] The noun was used to mean "a connected or continuous tract of land" or mainland.^[46] It was not applied only to very large areas of land—in the 17th century, references were made to the continents (or mainlands) of Isle of Man, Ireland and Wales and in 1745 to Sumatra.^[46] The word continent was used in translating Greek and Latin writings about the three "parts" of the world, although in the original languages no word of exactly the same meaning as continent was used.^[48]

While continent was used on the one hand for relatively small areas of continuous land, on the other hand geographers again raised Herodotus’s query about why a single large landmass should be divided into separate continents. In the mid 17th century Peter Heylin wrote in his Cosmographie that "A Continent is a great quantity of Land, not separated by any Sea from the rest of the World, as the whole Continent of Europe, Asia, Africa." In 1727 Ephraim Chambers wrote in his Cyclopædia, "The world is ordinarily divided into two grand continents: the old and the new." And in his 1752 atlas, Emanuel Bowen defined a continent as "a large space of dry land comprehending many countries all joined together, without any separation by water. Thus Europe, Asia, and Africa is one great continent, as America is another."^[49] However, the old idea of Europe, Asia and Africa as "parts" of the world ultimately persisted with these being regarded as separate continents.

Beyond four continents[link]

From the late 18th century some geographers started to regard North America and South America as two parts of the world, making five parts in total. Overall though the fourfold division prevailed well into the 19th century.^[50]

Europeans discovered Australia in 1606 but for some time it was taken as part of Asia. By the late 18th century some geographers considered it a continent in its own right, making it the sixth (or fifth for those still taking America as a single continent).^[50] In 1813 Samuel Butler wrote of Australia as "New Holland, an immense island, which some geographers dignify with the appellation of another continent" and the Oxford English Dictionary was just as equivocal some decades later.^[51]

Antarctica was sighted in 1820 and described as a continent by Charles Wilkes on the United States Exploring Expedition in 1838, the last continent to be identified, although a great "Antarctic" (antipodean) landmass had been anticipated for millennia. An 1849 atlas labelled Antarctica as a continent but few atlases did so until after World War II.^[52]

From the mid-19th century, United States atlases more commonly treated North and South America as separate continents, while atlases published in Europe usually considered them one continent. However, it was still not uncommon for United States atlases to treat them as one continent up until World War II.^[53] The Olympic flag, devised in 1913, has five rings representing the five inhabited, participating continents, with America being treated as one continent and Antarctica not included.^[23]

From the 1950s, most United States geographers divided America in two^[53]. With the addition of Antarctica, this made the seven-continent model. However, this division of America never appealed to Latin America, which saw itself spanning an America that was a single landmass, and there the conception of six continents remains, as it does in scattered other countries.

Some geographers combine Europe and Asia together to be considered a single continent, dubbed "Eurasia".^[54] In this model, the world is divided into six continents (if North America and South America are considered separate continents).

Geology[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)

Geologists use the term continent in a different manner from geographers, where a continent is defined by continental crust: a platform of metamorphic and igneous rock, largely of granitic composition. Some geologists restrict the term 'continent' to portions of the crust built around stable Precambrian "shield", typically 1.5 to 3.8 billion years old, called a craton. The craton itself is an accretionary complex of ancient mobile belts (mountain belts) from earlier cycles of subduction, continental collision and break-up from plate tectonic activity. An outward-thickening veneer of younger, minimally deformed sedimentary rock covers much of the craton. The margins of geologic continents are characterized by currently active or relatively recently active mobile belts and deep troughs of accumulated marine or deltaic sediments. Beyond the margin, there is either a continental shelf and drop off to the basaltic ocean basin or the margin of another continent, depending on the current plate-tectonic setting of the continent. A continental boundary does not have to be a body of water. Over geologic time, continents are periodically submerged under large epicontinental seas, and continental collisions result in a continent becoming attached to another continent. The current geologic era is relatively anomalous in that so much of the continental areas are "high and dry" compared to much of geologic history.

The tectonic plates underlying the continents and oceans

Some argue that continents are accretionary crustal "rafts" which, unlike the denser basaltic crust of the ocean basins, are not subjected to destruction through the plate tectonic process of subduction. This accounts for the great age of the rocks comprising the continental cratons. By this definition, Eastern Europe, India and some other regions could be regarded as continental masses distinct from the rest of Eurasia because they have separate ancient shield areas (i.e. East European craton and Indian craton). Younger mobile belts (such as the Ural Mountains and Himalayas) mark the boundaries between these regions and the rest of Eurasia.

There are many microcontinents that are built of continental crust but do not contain a craton. Some of these are fragments of Gondwana or other ancient cratonic continents: Zealandia, which includes New Zealand and New Caledonia; Madagascar; the northern Mascarene Plateau, which includes the Seychelles. Other islands, such as several in the Caribbean Sea, are composed largely of granitic rock as well, but all continents contain both granitic and basaltic crust, and there is no clear boundary as to which islands would be considered microcontinents under such a definition. The Kerguelen Plateau, for example, is largely volcanic, but is associated with the breakup of Gondwanaland and is considered to be a microcontinent,^[55][56] whereas volcanic Iceland and Hawaii are not. The British Isles, Sri Lanka, Borneo, and Newfoundland are margins of the Laurasian continent which are only separated by inland seas flooding its margins.

Plate tectonics offers yet another way of defining continents. Today, Europe and most of Asia comprise the unified Eurasian Plate which is approximately coincident with the geographic Eurasian continent excluding India, Arabia, and far eastern Russia. India contains a central shield, and the geologically recent Himalaya mobile belt forms its northern margin. North America and South America are separate continents, the connecting isthmus being largely the result of volcanism from relatively recent subduction tectonics. North American continental rocks extend to Greenland (a portion of the Canadian Shield), and in terms of plate boundaries, the North American plate includes the easternmost portion of the Asian land mass. Geologists do not use these facts to suggest that eastern Asia is part of the North American continent, even though the plate boundary extends there; the word continent is usually used in its geographic sense and additional definitions ("continental rocks," "plate boundaries") are used as appropriate.

The movement of plates has caused the formation and break-up of continents over time, including occasional formation of a supercontinent that contains most or all of the continents. The supercontinent Columbia or Nuna formed during a period of 2.0–1.8 billion years and broke up about 1.5–1.3 billion years ago.^[57][58] The supercontinent Rodinia is thought to have formed about 1 billion years ago and to have embodied most or all of Earth's continents, and broken up into eight continents around 600 million years ago. The eight continents later re-assembled into another supercontinent called Pangaea; Pangaea broke up into Laurasia (which became North America and Eurasia) and Gondwana (which became the remaining continents).

See also[link]

List of cities by continent List of cities in Africa List of cities in Asia List of cities in Europe List of cities in North America List of cities in Oceania List of cities in South America

Geography portal Environment portal Ecology portal Weather portal List of sovereign states and dependent territories by continent List of supercontinents Subregion

References and notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Continents

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lez:Континент

Kofi Annan
United Nations and Arab League envoy to Syria
Incumbent
Assumed office 23 February 2012
Secretary General	Ban Ki-moon (UN) Nabil el-Araby (AL)
Preceded by	office created
Secretary-General of the United Nations
In office 1 January 1997 – 31 December 2006
Deputy	Louise Fréchette (1997–2006) Mark Malloch Brown (2006)
Preceded by	Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Succeeded by	Ban Ki-moon
Personal details
Born	Kofi Atta Annan (1938-04-08) 8 April 1938 (age 74) Kumasi, Colony of the Gold Coast, British Empire
Nationality	Ghanaian
Spouse(s)	Nane Maria Lagergren (m. 1984–present)
Relations	Anthony Gildas Kofi Annan (b. 1986)
Alma mater	Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Macalester College Graduate Institute of International Studies MIT
Religion	Christian (Protestant)[1]
Signature

Kofi Atta Annan ( /ˈkoʊfi ˈænən/; born 8 April 1938) is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for his founding of the Global AIDS and Health Fund to support developing countries in their struggle to care for their people.

Since February 2012, Annan has been the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, to help find a resolution to ongoing conflict there.^[2]

Early years and education[link]

Kofi Annan was born in Kumasi, Ghana. His twin sister Efua Atta, who died in 1991, shares the middle name Atta, which in Fante and Akan means 'twin'. Annan and his sister were born into one of the country's aristocratic families; both their grandfathers and their uncle were tribal chiefs.^[3]

In the Akan names tradition, some children are named according to the day of the week on which they were born, and/or in relation to how many children precede them. Kofi in Akan is the name that corresponds with Friday.^[4]

Pronunciation: Annan has said his surname rhymes with "cannon" in English.^[5]

From 1954 to 1957, Annan attended the elite Mfantsipim school, a Methodist boarding school in Cape Coast founded in the 1870s. Annan has said that the school taught him "that suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere".^[6] In 1957, the year Annan graduated from Mfantsipim, Ghana gained independence from Britain.

In 1958, Annan began studying economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology, now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology of Ghana. He received a Ford Foundation grant, enabling him to complete his undergraduate studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, in 1961. Annan then did a DEA degree in International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961–62. After some years of work experience, he studied at the MIT Sloan School of Management^[7] (1971–72) in the Sloan Fellows program and earned a Master of Science (M.S.) degree.

Annan is fluent in English, French, Akan, some Kru languages and other African languages.^[8]

Early career[link]

In 1962, Kofi Annan started working as a Budget Officer for the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations (UN). From 1974 to 1976, he worked as the Director of Tourism in Ghana. In the late 1980s, Annan returned to work for the UN, where he was appointed as an Assistant Secretary-General in three consecutive positions: Human Resources, Management and Security Coordinator (1987–1990); Program Planning, Budget and Finance, and Controller (1990–1992); and Peacekeeping Operations (March 1993 – December 1996).

The Rwandan Genocide took place in 1994 while Annan directed UN Peacekeeping Operations. In 2003 Canadian ex-General Roméo Dallaire, who was force commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, claimed that Annan was overly passive in his response to the imminent genocide. In his book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2003), General Dallaire asserted that Annan held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict, and from providing more logistical and material support. Dallaire claimed that Annan failed to provide responses to his repeated faxes asking for access to a weapons depository; such weapons could have helped Dallaire defend the endangered Tutsis. In 2004, ten years after the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, Annan said, "I could and should have done more to sound the alarm and rally support."^[9]

Annan served as Under-Secretary-General from March 1994 to October 1995. He was appointed a Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the former Yugoslavia, serving for five months before returning to his duties as Under-Secretary-General in April 1996.

Secretary-General of the United Nations[link]

Appointment[link]

On 13 December 1996, the United Nations Security Council recommended Annan to replace the previous Secretary-General, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, whose second term faced the veto of the United States.^[10][11] Confirmed four days later by the vote of the General Assembly,^[12] he started his first term as Secretary-General on 1 January 1997.

Activities[link]

Annan with the President of Russia Vladimir Putin at United Nations Headquarters in New York City on 16 November 2001.

In April 2001, Annan issued a five-point "Call to Action" to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Stating it was a "personal priority", Annan proposed a Global AIDS and Health Fund to stimulate the increased international spending needed to help developing countries confront the HIV/AIDS crisis. On 10 December 2001, Annan and the United Nations were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world".^[13]

During the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Annan called on the United States and the United Kingdom not to invade without the support of the United Nations. In a September 2004 interview on the BBC, when questioned about the legal authority for the invasion, Annan said he believed it was not in conformity with the UN charter and was illegal.^[14][15]

Annan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disagreed sharply on Iran's nuclear program, on an Iranian exhibition of cartoons mocking the Holocaust, and on the then upcoming International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust, an Iranian Holocaust denial conference in 2006.^[16] During a visit to Iran instigated by continued Iranian uranium enrichment, Annan said "I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is an undeniable historical fact and we should really accept that fact and teach people what happened in World War II and ensure it is never repeated."^[16]

Annan supported sending a UN peacekeeping mission to Darfur, Sudan. He worked with the government of Sudan to accept a transfer of power from the African Union peacekeeping mission to a UN one. Annan also worked with several Arab and Muslim countries on women's rights and other topics.

Beginning in 1998, Annan convened an annual UN "Security Council Retreat" with the 15 States' representatives of the Council. It was held at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) Conference Center at the Rockefeller family estate at Pocantico, and was sponsored by both the RBF and the UN.^[17]

Lubbers sexual-harassment investigation[link]

In June 2004, Annan was given a copy of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report on the complaint brought by four women workers against Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees for sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and retaliation. The report also reviewed a long-serving staff member's allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against Werner Blatter, Director of UNHCR Personnel. The investigation found Lubbers guilty of sexual harassment; no mention was made publicly of the other charge against a senior official, or two subsequent complaints filed later that year. In the course of the official investigation, Lubbers wrote a letter which some considered was a threat to the female worker who had brought the charges.^[18] On 15 July 2004, Annan cleared Lubbers of the accusations, saying they were not substantial enough legally.^[19] His decision held until November 2004. When the OIOS issued its annual report to the UN General Assembly, it stated that it had found Lubbers guilty of sexual harassment. These events were widely reported and weakened Annan's influence.

On 17 November 2004, Annan accepted an OIOS report clearing Dileep Nair, UN Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, of political corruption and sexual harassment charges. Some UN staff in New York disagreed with this conclusion, leading to extended debate on 19 November.

The internal UNn-OIOS report on Lubbers was leaked, and sections accompanied by an article by Kate Holt were published in a British newspaper. In February 2005, he resigned as head of the UN refugee agency. Lubbers said he wanted to relieve political pressure on Annan.^[20]

Oil-for-Food scandal[link]

In December 2004, reports surfaced that the Secretary-General's son Kojo Annan received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection SA, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations.

Annan appointed the Independent Inquiry Committee,^[21] which was led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,^[22] then the director of the United Nations Association of the US. In his first interview with the Inquiry Committee, Annan denied having had a meeting with Cotecna. Later in the inquiry, he recalled that he had met with Cotecna's chief executive Elie-Georges Massey twice. In a final report issued on 27 October, the committee found insufficient evidence to indict Kofi Annan on any illegal actions, but did find fault with Benan Sevan, a Cypriot national who had worked for the UN for about 40 years. Appointed by Annan to the Oil-For-Food role, Sevan repeatedly asked Iraqis for allocations of oil to the African Middle East Petroleum Company. Sevan's behavior was "ethically improper", Volcker said to reporters. Sevan repeatedly denied the charges and argued that he was being made a "scapegoat".^{[citation needed]} The Volcker report was highly critical of the UN management structure and the Security Council oversight. It strongly recommended a new position be established of Chief Operating Officer (COO), to handle the fiscal and administrative responsibilities than under the Secretary General's office. The report listed the companies, both Western and Middle Eastern, that benefited illegally from the program.^{[22][citation needed]}

Relations between the United States and the United Nations[link]

Kofi Annan supported^[23] his deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, who openly criticized the United States in a speech on 6 June 2006: "[T]he prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable. You will lose the UN one way or another. [...] [That] the US is constructively engaged with the UN [...] is not well known or understood, in part because much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News."^[24] Malloch later said his talk was a "sincere and constructive critique of U.S. policy toward the U.N. by a friend and admirer."^[25]

The talk was unusual because it violated unofficial policy of not having top officials publicly criticize member nations.^[25] The interim U.S. ambassador John R. Bolton, appointed by President George W. Bush, was reported to have told Annan on the phone: "I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior UN official that I have seen in that entire time."^[25] Observers from other nations confirmed Malloch's view that conservative politicians in the US prevented many citizens from understanding the benefits of US involvement in the UN.^[26]

UN Resolution 61/225: World Diabetes Day[link]

Kofi Annan witnessed the United Nations General Assembly's passage of UN Resolution 61/225, to establish World Diabetes Day. The Resolution was the second UN General Assembly Resolution on a health-related issue (the other being HIV/AIDS). Resolution 61/225 is the only Health-related UN Resolution to pass by consensus. Sponsored by the Republic of South Africa and Bangladesh, the Resolution was passed on 20 December 2006.

Farewell addresses[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Secretary-General Kofi Annan's address at the Truman Presidential Museum & Library on 11 December 2006

On 19 September 2006, Annan gave a farewell address to world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters in New York, in anticipation of his retirement on 31 December. In the speech he outlined three major problems of "an unjust world economy, world disorder, and widespread contempt for human rights and the rule of law", which he believes "have not resolved, but sharpened" during his time as Secretary-General. He also pointed to violence in Africa, and the Arab-Israeli conflict as two major issues warranting attention.^[27]

On 11 December 2006, in his final speech as Secretary-General, delivered at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, Annan recalled Truman's leadership in the founding of the United Nations. He called for the United States to return to President Truman's multilateralist foreign policies, and to follow Truman's credo that "the responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world". He also said that the United States must maintain its commitment to human rights, "including in the struggle against terrorism."^[28][29]

Recommendations for UN reform[link]

Soon after taking office in 1997, Annan released two reports on management reform. On 17 March 1997, the report ‘Management and Organisational Measures’ (A/51/829) introduced new management mechanisms through the establishment of a cabinet-style body to assist him and be grouping the UN’s activities in accordance with four core missions. A comprehensive reform agenda was issued on 14 July 1997 entitled ‘Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform’ (A/51/950). Key proposals included the introduction of strategic management to strengthen unity of purpose, the establishment of the position of Deputy Secretary-General, a 10-percent reduction in posts, a reduction in administrative costs, the consolidation of the UN at the country level, and reaching out to civil society and the private sector as partners. Annan also proposed to hold a Millennium Summit in 2000.^{[citation needed]}

After years of research, Annan presented a progress report, In Larger Freedom, to the UN General Assembly, on 21 March 2005. Annan recommended Security Council expansion and a host of other UN reforms.^[30]

On 31 January 2006, Kofi Annan outlined his vision for a comprehensive and extensive reform of the UN in a policy speech to the United Nations Association UK. The speech, delivered at Central Hall, Westminster, also marked the 60th Anniversary of the first meetings of the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council.^[31]

On 7 March 2006, he presented to the General Assembly his proposals for a fundamental overhaul of the United Nations Secretariat. The reform report is entitled: "Investing in the United Nations, For a Stronger Organization Worldwide".^[32]

On 30 March 2006, he presented to the General Assembly his analysis and recommendations for updating the entire work programme of the United Nations Secretariat over the last 60 years. The report is entitled: "Mandating and Delivering: Analysis and Recommendations to Facilitate the Review of Mandates".^[33]

Post-UN career[link]