As soon as you enter university, you entered various movements of young people.
It was a time with a lot of political change, and the young people were very engaged, we wanted changes. The movement against the Vietnam War was alive, also the protests against Apartheid, we rose up against the imposition of bases by foreign military in New Zealand, in defense of the rights of the indigenous people here, we denounced the nuclear tests being carried out in the Pacific…

After being a university professor, he entered politics with the Labour Party.
To change policies, it is essential to change the government. Many classmates decided to work in groups to put pressure on the government, but I decided to join a political party because it is the most effective way to change policies. In addition, at that time, in 1972, there was a change of government, the Labour Party won and some changes that we advocated could be made: New Zealand soldiers came home from Vietnam, the rugby team suspended the final match against South Africa to show their rejection of apartheid, the government took an official stand against the Pacific nuclear tests…

In 1981 he was a parliamentarian and then Minister of Housing, Health and Conservation, and in 1990 he was Prime Minister. You were the second woman to come to that post in New Zealand and held office for nine years.
I already had a lot of experience in politics, but being a prime minister is reaching the highest level. I took advantage of it to make new policies and to put the country into international movements. They were years of a lot of work, but at the same time very exciting and beautiful; they passed fast.

You opposed the invasion of Iraq and as Prime Minister, New Zealand was the first country to send troops to help rebuild Afghanistan.
Yes, but being a small nation, we cannot decide much in international conflicts and policies. In addition, the United States had powerful allies, including Australia, the United Kingdom and Spain. In the case of Afghanistan, we send military engineers to help with reconstruction (electrical installations, hospitals, schools…). But only a year, because it was very dangerous for the soldiers to live there, they weren't combat troops.

In 2009, he was appointed Secretary of the United Nations Development Programme, the first woman to lead the agency. What was your biggest challenge?
Clarify and make public all sources of funding. There are secret sources of funding in all the institutions that are not correct. Society deserves all transparency. I also worked hard to make public all the information on reports and projects within the organization, so that all citizens had open access. On the other hand, one of the first works consisted of leaving the traditional work system and making public the work carried out by the Program in its offices in the world using social networks. In fact, they had tremendous stories to tell, and I found it very important to disseminate them.

Two years after its arrival in the Secretariat, the Agenda for Development received the award to the most open and transparent organization of the mundo.Un
radical change in the culture and functioning of the organization, a great logro.En no institution, neither in any government nor in any NGOs, everything will go perfectly, but the key is to deal with things when they are wrong and solve them with total transparency.

He has worked in developing countries. In what sense would you say it helped you?
I've led a giant organization, but I haven't been able to get to everything and I've had to focus on a few issues. As an international organization of high level and prestige, it is easier to reach people with more power and influence, and I think that has been the greatest achievement, to reach presidents and ministers. They are developing countries, but to do so they need appropriate strategies and planning, and the achievement is that the economic aid granted to these Governments will be permanent and incorporated into the global agenda. As far as sustainability is concerned, we have also worked hard on it. But always depending on the demands and pace of the country; you have to help solve at every moment what you want and what you ask, you cannot impose anything, but the United Nations wants to follow the global agenda in detail and there is often a great debate there. At the moment, the great work of the United Nations is climate change, which carries most of the money, about EUR 4 trillion, and is growing at full speed.

The Programme has also participated in the development of countries in emergency situations.
Yes, in countries like Syria, SOMALIA or Yemen. Despite being countries with terrible wars and the pressures of the actors in the conflict, the United Nations Development Programme has earned money for those countries. In cooperation with local institutions, we have tried to provide the necessary resources for citizens to live. A minimum economy must move forward, life must move forward.

The UN was created in 1945 to prevent wars between nations. Do you think the organization does everything in its power to do this?
Not quite. We are at a time of great tension. We have three powerful forces in the world, the United States, Russia and China, and everything is in your hands. On the contrary, there are other countries that have not even been on the country’s security council. In addition, the post of secretary-general has less and less power, because it is above the most powerful countries in history. The role of the Secretary-General needs to be changed: to risk and to adopt an attitude. There is nothing else to do with what is happening in the case of the war in Syria. The UN will not intervene in any way, since the great powers do not agree with each other in the decisions and no Secretary-General is prepared to intervene in the powers. The war in Syria will probably have a terrible end, and in addition to the agents who have hit it, Russia, Iran and in part Turkey will also have to participate.

What are the biggest challenges facing the UN?
One of the biggest problems is that the United States has emerged from the climate action agreement, although there have already been years before the United States did not support UN programmes and did not pay contributions. Governing that is not going to be easy, but politics is very dynamic and there are great movements. The United States has distanced itself from the Paris Agreement, while China has said it is prepared to give everything to combat climate change, and less badly. In any case, I believe that the United States is going to reflect and come back, otherwise we are working in vain.

In 2016 he stood as a candidate for the UN General Secretariat. You would be the first woman in that position and a great campaign was made for it, but Antonio Gutiérrez was elected. Is there a gender problem at the U.N.?
Oh my God! Since its inception, it has had nine secretaries-general and all of them are men. In 2016 there was an unbeatable opportunity to turn that around: whether I was a woman or yes, and we presented to several highly qualified candidates, such as Bulgarian Irina Bokova and Argentinean Susana Malcorra, but in vain. At the political level, many women have remained on the road, despite being well prepared and working very well, because they did not get enough votes. It's ridiculous, miserable: we want successful women, but then we don't give them a choice.

You have participated in several congresses with leading women around the world and have defended on several occasions the importance of women occupying positions of responsibility and leadership in all areas.
It is a question of basic rights. In the years that I have worked on the Agenda for Development, I have seen that very few countries have women in the highest positions. It's not right that only half of society has the role of making decisions. Women have the right to be represented in full, and for that we should have 50% of the parliaments. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, much progress was made thanks to the feminist movement and the present generation believes that everything is done, but unfortunately there is still a great deal to do. The report, which was presented at the 2017 World Economic Forum, points out that, at the current rate, it will take a hundred years to achieve parliamentary representation and 217 years to achieve equality in the workplace. Therefore, we women must be aware that this reality will not change in this way: to get angry, to organize and to create social alarm. Of course, we also need the support of men.

In 2016, the financial magazine Forbes named you the world's 22 most powerful woman, you're the world's second most influential leading woman for Richtopia magazine on social media and you're considered the most powerful woman in New Zealand. This involves the ability and responsibility to reach a lot of people.
I'm always close to Twitter discussions, because every tweet comes to a lot of people. I've been a leader for many years and a lot of people follow me, want to know my opinion about problems and conflicts or what issues I give visibility to. Normally, I had a tweet about the news from small countries, where no one is very interested. In recent weeks, for example, I have been following the conflicts in the Maldives and the governments of the Gambia, because the media only talk about Trump and Brexit, and there is another world, made up of developing countries, which accounts for 80% of the world's population.

Have you ever lost the hope of politics throughout your career?
No, and I have experienced desperate moments! After I was Prime Minister, the conservative candidate won, with a completely different policy than before. But the system works like this. Through politics, many changes can be made, and even more so in a small democracy such as that of New Zealand. In Europe, at the moment the political system is very fragmented, traditional democratic parties are putting a lot of pressure on many countries, but in Britain, for example, the Labour Party won when nobody expected it. In Portugal, they have managed to implement progressive government through the coalition of four parties, and change is possible. The progressive government should be tried wherever possible in order to implement policies based on society and the environment. Why do they attach so much importance to GDP growth? The benefits are important, but what is more and more important invested in? Conservative parties all they want is for the rates to be applied to political parties. It is true that in order to maintain infrastructure, money is needed, education needs money, the pension system needs money… but at the same time as taxes are levied, it is essential to ensure the welfare of society.

At the end of the documentary One year with Helen you say: “I’ll look for something constructive.” What projects do you work on now?
I've spent my entire life in politics, especially on international issues, and that's why I'm called from different institutions to participate in initiatives or to give conferences, especially on issues of sustainability or gender and women's leadership. I am increasingly involved in health issues.