You can build new buildings, but if you cannot find quality men and women to implement the programmes and to give them the confidence that their programmes will be able to continue and grow in the future, you ve achieved nothing.

No matter how poor or isolated the population, efforts to improve health and education standards are just as important as improvements in agricultural productivity and the economy of other sectors.

The ethics of Islam enjoin all believers, individually or through institutions such as the Ismaili Imamat, to assist the poor, the isolated, and the marginalised to improve their current circumstances and future prospects.

I believe that it is critical to build capacity more generally to position users to be active participants in the advances in the shaping of content and applications. Only then will the full potential of the new information technology begin to be realised. And only then will the concern of some, that the Internet poses a threat to their cultures, be addressed.

The rapid developments in information and communication technology are of immense importance for those of us engaged in promoting positive economic, social, and cultural change. Like Jim Wolfensohn, I believe that they are also critical because development in all those dimensions is a prerequisite for world peace.

The loss of our inheritance of cultural pluralism -- the identity it conveys to members of diverse societies, and the originality it represents and stimulates in all of them -- will impoverish our societies now and into the future

Skill, knowledge, and vision in the realm of architecture were once a hallmark of Islamic civilisations, and central to the identity of its peoples.

In recent years there has been an absolute revolution in education. This revolution in education is driven by a number of new concepts. First of all communications, the capacity to bring education through the new electronic networks to the most isolated parts of our globe. The second one is the extraordinary volume of knowledge which each individual has to absorb during his or her lifetime. And therefore the necessity for continuing education.

Human genius is found in its variety which is the work of Allah. Harnessing that genius to the fullest should be one of the goals of all modern societies and nations in addition to mobilizing creative capacity from all segments of society. I

Peace is a critical aspect of all aspects of development and for the growth of civil society.