Thought leaders on Mandela Day: Corinne Woods, UN Millennium Campaign

Corinne Woods currently serves as Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, which supports citizens’ efforts to hold their governments accountable for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

It also leads the outreach to citizens and stakeholders to get their voices and concerns to feed into the post-2015 global development agenda.

On living (and working) Mr Mandela’s legacy

Honouring what Mr Mandela stood for isn’t something you do once, says Woods. It’s not something you can encapsulate into a neat Mandela Day activation.

“It’s about being conscious of the choices you make in life, where you choose to engage or not engage, where you chose to make an effort or not,” she says.

“For me, working at the UN, I focus on ways to hold fast to Mr Mandela’s belief that people matter, and as a leader I try help move the organisation towards projects and initiatives that uphold this same belief.

“I also know that action is key – we only have a limited time on earth to achieve something – and so I tend to stay focused on following projects through and seeing them to their end. I suppose that this in its own way speaks to another part of Mr Mandela’s legacy – one of his enduring commitment to getting things done, his steadfastness in accomplishing goals.

“I would like to say that I try to model the work I do on Mr Mandela’s belief and application of radical inclusion, but realistically that is the very work of the UN and very much a part of the organisation’s goals. We believe, as did Mr Mandela, that all people have rights,” she says.

Click here to read more about the UNDP’s My World Project, a global survey that aims to capture the voices of people from across the globe on what matters to them most in terms of lifestyle, development, healthcare and social issues.

The survey results will be used to inform global leaders of the world’s priorities as the process of defining the new development agenda, and the 2030 development goals, begins.