United Nations: Kofi Annan steps down as Secretary-General at midnight on Sunday, leaving behind a global organisation far more aggressively engaged in peacekeeping and fighting poverty -- but struggling to restore its tarnished reputation.
Taking office six years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Annan helped preside over a decade that saw the world unite against terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks, then divide deeply over the US-led war against Iraq, which toppled Saddam Hussein.
At a Millennium Summit in September 2000, he spurred world leaders to adopt a blueprint to wage a global war on poverty and bring the United Nations into the 21st century.
Five years later, he called a follow-up summit to mark the UN's 60th anniversary. Hoping to complete the bold changes, he sought to promote development, ensure international security and end human rights abuses. History's largest gathering of world leaders took a first step, but it fell far short.
Unlike the upbeat atmosphere at the dawn of the new millennium, the World Summit in 2005 took place after a year of almost daily attacks on the United Nations over allegations of corruption in the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, bribery by UN purchasing officials, and widespread sex abuse by UN peacekeepers.
World leaders agreed to create an internal ethics office, but they did not give Annan the authority to make sweeping management changes. The major overhaul of the UN's outdated management practices and operating procedures will be left to Annan's successor, Ban Ki-moon, who takes over on Monday.
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