Winnie Byanyima Quotes About Love, Life, Onusida, Oxfam, Museveni

Winnie Byanyima Quotes:

I am still haunted by the memory of my Ugandan friends dying from HIV years ago because high prices kept the medicines they needed out of reach.

Winnie Byanyima

Civil society space provides the oxygen for citizens to participate and meaningfully hold their governments and the private sector to account – and ensure that decisions are made in the interest of the majority and not the few. Without it, citizens have limited space to dissent and challenge the elites.

Winnie Byanyima

Global governance needs recalibrating so it works in the public interest of all the world’s citizens – not just for the few.

Winnie Byanyima

If the civil society is not transparent, honest, and accountable, then you cannot be a champion of social justice.

Winnie Byanyima

The people standing up most strongly for our democracies should be celebrated, not prosecuted – be it those countless human rights defenders who defend all our rights or the brave whistle-blowers who expose tax dodging.

Winnie Byanyima

Cutting down a forest for timber adds to GDP, but what we don’t record is the loss to our wealth in terms of natural resources.

Winnie Byanyima

Rather than working for all, power and public policy is increasingly influenced by wealthy elites that are able to bend the rules – and hijack democratic institutions – to their favour.

Winnie Byanyima

A global tax body would give all countries – not just the rich and powerful – an equal say in how the global rules on taxation are designed.

Winnie Byanyima

We need to harness the boundless energy and creativity of our youth.

Winnie Byanyima

When men and women, boys and girls, are denied the right to education, the right to own land, the access to basic services like healthcare and clean water, a fair price for the crops they grow, a fair wage for the work they do, or the right to be part of making decisions that affect them, the result is poverty.

Winnie Byanyima

Leadership is so defined by men, and we need to revise that – we need to be able to say that the people we honor are not the conquerors but the peacemakers.

Winnie Byanyima

The struggles to overturn colonial rule were long and often bitter. But, over time, most were inevitably successful.

Winnie Byanyima

Wealth does not trickle down to the poor. Oxfam knows this, the IMF knows this, the World Bank knows this. Poor people have always known this.

Winnie Byanyima

By allowing super wealthy corporations and individuals to avoid paying their fair share of tax, tax havens are denying governments’ revenue that could and should be spent on schools, healthcare, and other essential services.

Winnie Byanyima

I have learnt to enjoy my own company because I have lived alone many years.

Winnie Byanyima

My life has been varied, involving many jobs, but I have always been impatient with injustice.

Winnie Byanyima

Economic inequality is a corrosive force that undermines economic growth, puts a brake on the fight against poverty, and sparks social unrest.

Winnie Byanyima

Poverty is rooted in injustice.

Winnie Byanyima

The proud fight against colonialism is one that should be consigned to history.

Winnie Byanyima

The high price of medicines is crippling healthcare systems and denying people access to the treatments they so desperately need.

Winnie Byanyima

I don’t think it’s helpful to go dismantling the past, but you can refuse to honor aspects of it that you don’t believe in anymore.

Winnie Byanyima

African countries lose the most from tax dodging. African governments must, therefore, do more to push for a full reform of the global tax system and demand action from countries, such as the U.K., whose financial centres sit at the heart of the global network of tax havens.

Winnie Byanyima

Our economic system has enabled companies and individuals to use their power and influence to capture and retain an ever-increasing share of the benefits of economic growth while the benefits for the poorest in society have shrunk.

Winnie Byanyima

When we talk about women’s economic empowerment, we should be careful that we’re not just giving women more to do.

Winnie Byanyima

Rule of law, access to justice, and financial transparency happen by design, not accident.

Winnie Byanyima

Poverty is a result of lack of opportunity. Lack of opportunity is about being without power, without being in a position to make choices.

Winnie Byanyima

We treat a planet at crisis point as an externality that can be shunted into a future generation. We continue to act as if we had the natural resources of several planets, not one.

Winnie Byanyima

GDP excludes care work and other unpaid work, most of which falls to women and girls in rich and in poor countries alike.

Winnie Byanyima

Women, men, and children have fundamental rights to humanitarian assistance and protection. Yet far too many states block aid and attack their own citizens, and too many others – including some of the world’s wealthiest countries – turn their back on those fleeing conflict and violence.

Winnie Byanyima

Billions of people are being left behind by economic growth.

Winnie Byanyima

For me, growing up as an activist under an oppressive dictatorship in Uganda, the U.N. was a friend to those of us who fought our way to freedom, as it was for the millions who joined decolonization struggles in the African continent.

Winnie Byanyima

Without women’s equal access to positions of decision-making power and a clear process to get there, gender equality, global security, and peace will never be realized.

Winnie Byanyima

A good leader, in my view, should have a clear vision of the future they want and the society they need to build. They must also have a connection with the people who work for them and be able to mobilise their best energies to create teams where people can be most creative and happy.

Winnie Byanyima

Conflict and callous politics drive famine.

High corruption and the influence of big business and the wealthy elite keeps the poorest Nigerians trapped in poverty and cut off from the benefits of economic growth and basic services. Some people – searching for the means to survive – became vulnerable to groups like Boko Haram.

Winnie Byanyima

The discrimination of women and girls goes to the core of any and all analyses of the world’s economic, political, and environmental problems.

Winnie Byanyima

Global growth and development that is strong, sustainable, and inclusive requires the challenges of inequality to be met head-on.

Winnie Byanyima

The importance of tackling inequality in Africa cannot be overstated.

Winnie Byanyima

Tax abuse is a scourge on our global community, but especially for Africa.

Winnie Byanyima

Inequality, climate change, and conflict are evicting millions from their homes. But these perils are being met with ‘anti-answers’ such as nationalism, closed borders, lies, and hatred.

Winnie Byanyima

Development cooperation between nations is very important because it is one of the building blocks of shared peace, prosperity, and human rights for all. It is one of the antidotes to the poison of xenophobia.

Winnie Byanyima

My own life values were shaped in great part by my mother, who instigated women’s clubs in my village. Women were able to organize and stand together. What inspired me most about their work was the power it gave them to assert their rights and the rights of their daughters, be it education or property inheritance.

Winnie Byanyima

The U.N. must be made more inclusive, accountable, democratic, effective, and reflective of a world in which political and economic power has shifted.

Winnie Byanyima

Instead of presiding over an economic system that panders to big business and a wealthy elite, a more human economy must be established which meets the needs of African women and young people.

Winnie Byanyima

Far too many governments are cutting back on their investment in human development.

Winnie Byanyima

African countries lose billions every year because of tax dodging by big corporations and wealthy individuals. They lose billions more from overly generous tax incentives in a misguided belief that this is the only way to attract foreign investment.

Winnie Byanyima

Rather than engineering our economies solely to maximise GDP, Africa’s business and political leaders must build economies explicitly designed to end poverty and inequality.

Winnie Byanyima

Who is Winnie Byanyima?

The Ugandan aeronautical engineer, politician, and diplomat Winifred Byanyima. As of November 2019, she has been the Executive Director of UNAIDS. She was previously Executive Director of Oxfam International from May 2013 to November 2019.