With an agenda dominated by global security and U.N. reform, it appears that the decisions needed to lift millions of people from abject poverty are not being given the prominence they deserve.

I was 15 years old when I first heard the name Mandela, or Madiba, as he is fondly known in Africa. In apartheid South Africa he was public enemy number one. Shrouded in secrecy, myth and rumour, the media called him 'The Black Pimpernel'.

I've come across a lot of people in my life who talk about poverty and talk about the poor, but you rarely have a sense that it matters to them to the point at which they will be willing to sacrifice something.

I think even though he [Nelson Mandela] was feted and praised as he was, he always was at pains to say, I'm a human being.

I first met Nelson Mandela when I was in my late 20s, in 1993. I was helping facilitate an African National Congress (ANC) workshop to plan its media strategy. I went down to meet him for the first time and you know me I got stupid... I just choked. I said, Hello Madiba, it's a real honour to meet you, and I couldn't get another word out.

Nelson Mandela once said I can't help it if the ladies take note of me I'm not going to protest.

[Nelson] Mandela was very keen not to be understood as an exceptional person.

Nelson Mandela also spoke about how, as a human being, he's made mistakes.

A movement only becomes a movement of substance, size, and power when the artists say 'we want to add our voice.'

One of the things that I noticed with my own eyes was Nelson Mandela ability to engage with kings and queens and heads of state on the one hand, and his ability to engage with ordinary people, equally comfortably.

Investing one cent more in oil, coal and gas is investing in the death of society, and the in the death of our children.

Struggles only move forward when decent men and women step forward and say, 'enough is enough and no more.'

You know how they say, 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?' What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.

If not one more cent in new aid money flowed [to Africa], we could with more urgency and efficiency and creativity be doing much more to take more people out of poverty.