Helen Clark
Helen Clark
Helen Elizabeth Clark ONZ SSIis the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, and was the 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand. As Prime Minister she served three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2008 and was the first woman elected at a general election as the Prime Minister, and was the fifth longest serving person to hold that office. She has been Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, the third-highest UN position, since 2009. In April 2016, she declared...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth26 February 1950
CityHamilton, New Zealand
Helen Clark quotes about
To have two big and powerful countries like the United States and Britain to walk outside the framework... there is going to be lot of soul searching now at the United Nations' Security Council, and within NATO, and within the European Union about what this means for the future,
Well, look, that's not for me to judge. I have a completely different style.
Grounded in international human rights, gender equality doesn’t just improve the lives of individual women, girls, and their families; it makes economic sense, strengthens democracy, and enables long-term sustainable progress.
Girls can do anything. We do do anything and we expect to be treated as equals.
I only take on roles that I'm passionate about. Life is too short to do things that you're not happy with.
Someone's got to break the glass ceiling, and once it's broken, everybody else comes clamouring up behind.
We need a lot of thinking and ideas. We need all the innovators, particularly with the new sustainable technologies - how do we get them to affordability so that people can generate clean energy?
Any serious shift towards more sustainable societies has to include gender equality.
Adopting and promoting sustainable production practices require concerted effort, something which in practice is too often missing or insufficient. Making this shift at the scale required demands forward-looking leadership in the public and private sectors alike.
Innovation applied across the board of development is having a huge impact, and can have more. All sorts of technology can provide shortcuts, can overcome obstacles which once seemed insuperable.
I deeply detest social distinction and snobbery, and in that lies my strong aversion to titular honours.
Equity, dignity, happiness, sustainability - these are all fundamental to our lives but absent in the GDP.
It is a very small minority point of view and I think, through continuing to set the tone of tolerance, acceptance, and diversity, you just have to further marginalize such people. Hopefully one day nobody will think that way.
I don't know that you're ever going to persuade New Zealanders that they're not going to own their own homes and I'm not going to try.