Transcript: Kofi Annan on power

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has told the BBC that power in the world will emanate more and more from the bottom up, rather than from above. Mr Annan spoke to the BBC's Lyse Doucet as part of its Who Runs Your World? season.

Read the full transcript of the interview below.

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Kofi Annan is hosting the World Summit in New York

Q: In principle, you are the head of the global body. Do you feel that you run the world?

A: Power is very peripheral, and the UN has influence. We can help set norms and standards and provide vision, as we have done on poverty and in the area of Aids.

We are trying to establish the "norm" of responsibility to protect. But, today, power is diffused and applied at various levels.

We operate at the international level, but at the local level governments have responsibility. But, today, governments can't do it alone.

They have to work in partnership with their private sector, with civil society, and the communities there, to get it done.

What is also important is that today, I don't believe any leader can think in purely local terms. What happens locally has an impact on the international, and what happens internationally has an impact on the local.

So, it's very confusing for ordinary people. How do you go and tell a worker - either in America, or a Third World developing country - that you will lose your job tomorrow, telling them that investors are pulling money away.

They will say: "But we are producing, we have been working very hard. Who are these investors? What are you telling me?"

It's very perplexing for them. Of course, it's the kind of world that we live in, but I think we have a situation where, more and more, we are going to notice that power will be emanating from the bottom up, rather than surging down from above.

Q: You have the tools and the institutions - the possibility of changing many things in the world. Are you frustrated because you can't?

A: It starts with your members, first with your members.

Then, you can get into other difficulties and, of course, I hope the UN will not be seen as a world government. If I give the impression we are a world government we will get even more critics, and our critics will become emboldened.

We assist to uphold the ideals in the charter. In the interests of the people, we try to set standards and raise levels, not just for the people but for governments to embrace.

Who runs my world? My member states. They are my shared leaders, my holders Kofi Annan

Take human rights. If we had not come up with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, what will be the point of reference when people are abused?

Could you imagine if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had existed at the time of World War II?

Given all the atrocities, I am sure that there would have been men and women who would have had the courage to say: "Wait a moment. This is not in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is not in conformity with what the charter and the document asked us to do."

This is what we are using to contain situations in Sudan. We failed in Rwanda, but we are using these standards to help people elsewhere, so, in that sense, the UN does make a difference.

We do have an influence on the issue of development. I think at this summit, the concept that everything is linked - that you cannot have development without security, and you cannot have security without development, and you would enjoy neither if there was no respect for human rights - is more or less accepted and I think it is a very important advance.

Q: Who runs your world?

A: Who runs my world? My member states. They are my shared leaders, my holders.

But, of course, we also relate to the public. One of the things I did when I became secretary general is that I wanted to bring the UN closer to the people.

One has to understand power and the use of power and not behave as if one is omnipotent. You can't do it alone - you need the others Kofi Annan

After all, our charter starts: "We, the people of the United Nations..." So, while I take instructions from the governments, from the Security Council and from the General Assembly, I also listen to the people and we play off what they sometimes tell us.

You have no idea how we work with civil society and the NGOs. They are fiercely independent, they don't want to be co-ordinated.

We cannot operate in the field without our essential partners, the NGOs. There are times when we don't like what they say or do, and they don't like everything we say or do.

There are also moments when they are ahead of us. They say things that provoke, but which in a few years' time become conventional wisdom.

They can lead and say things that I cannot say easily. But, they do it and it is a wonderful dynamic. A good leader must also be a good follower.

Q: So, sometimes, ironically, one of the most powerful men in the world feels powerless?

A: That is correct. I think one should also understand the limits of power.

One has to understand power and the use of power and not behave as if one is omnipotent. You can't do it alone - you need the others.

You are where you are because people have entrusted their faith in you and this is something they can take back and something you can lose very quickly.

One has to always be conscious that it's not a God-given right for them to lead and they are where they are because people have acquiesced and they have entrusted that faith in him or her - and it can also be withdrawn.

It must be used in the interest of those who have provided that trust.