Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

When I became finance minister, they called me Okonjo-Wahala - or 'Trouble Woman.' It means 'I give you hell.' But I don't care what names they call me. I'm a fighter; I'm very focused on what I'm doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way, you get kicked.

I'm trying to tell you that there's a new wave on the continent. A new wave of openness and democratization in which, since 2000, more than two-thirds of African countries have had multi-party democratic elections. Not all of them have been perfect, or will be, but the trend is very clear.

The best way to help Africans today is to help them to stand on their own feet. And the best way to do that is by helping create jobs.

When you save the life of anyone, a farmer, a teacher, a mother, they are contributing productively into the economy.

Investing in women is smart economics, and investing in girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics.

I felt Nigeria didn't have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn't have to let the economy stagnate.

I know what it means to go to the stream to fetch water... what it means when people are poor and don't have enough to eat. It's not enough to say you know about poverty. You have to live it.

Educating our young girls is the foundation for Nigeria's growth and development.

The U.K. and the U.S. could not have been built today without Africa's aid. It is all the resources that were taken from Africa, including human, that built these countries today! So when they try to give back, we shouldn't be on the defensive.