Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, Excellencies,

It is an honor to address this distinguished people, here in Jeju. Looking at the candidates gathered here, I cannot help but feel a profound sense of déjà vu. Although Secretary-General Ban said that there was no beauty contest at his time, there was one.

So, it takes me twenty years ago. I was accompanying then Foreign Minister Ban to Davos, the first and the only beauty contest held in Davos. And at the airport, when I had the chance, I said to him an unsolicited advice: “Minister, whichever questions are addressed to you, make your answers short, sweet, and simple.” Despite my advice, he gave long, sophisticated, eloquent answers. And the rest is history.

So I talk to the candidates: speak up, and show your true colors, as did Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon twenty-some years ago.

On a serious note, I am compelled to compare the challenges of the time and now. We had a war in the Middle East. The war in Iraq just finished at the time. Now we have the war in Iran at the critical inflection point. Back then, the civil war in Darfur just finished. Now, today, Sudan continues to be raided by internal war.

Twenty years ago, achieving MDGs felt so ambitious, too ambitious. Today, achieving SDGs seems to be ever more elusive. In that respect, I think we have been fragmentedunlike the catch-phrasing word of “re-inventing the fragmented world.”

So what is to be done? The only big difference is that the United Nations today has become more and more invisible, less and less visible. So it should be the job of the next Secretary General to make it visible and lead the world.

In several months’ time, one of the candidates will emerge as the Secretary General of the United Nations. She or he will jumped into the cockpit of the world plane. I think all of you are qualified, but whoever plies the rudder in the cockpit will say to the rest of the world: “To go through this turbulence, fasten your seatbelt.”

Since this will be the most unenviable job, as said by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, we all owe our thanks to you for your courage in stepping up.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you very much.