U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday reflected upon his first year performance in office, telling of progress he achieved in U.N. reform, climate change, human rights and the Millennium Development Goals, and international security.

During the year, he flew 125,000 miles (201,168 km) during 57 official visits in 39 countries or territories on six continents, spending 132 days on the road, Ban said.

"I have not sat still this year," the U.N. chief said. "From the very first day that I took office, I have been on the go -- engaging leaders in their capitals and across the U.N. community to push progress."

Ban reiterated his pledge to "change the U.N. culture and re-engineer the United Nations for life in our fast-paced modern world."

"We need to move faster, and more effectively in responding to global challenges, within all three pillars of the U.N.'s work: peace and security, economic and social development, human rights," he said.

After restructuring the Department of Peacekeeping Operations by splitting it into separate operational and logistical departments, he will turn to the Department of Political Affairs to make it "more proactive in tackling global crises, especially in the realm of preventive diplomacy," Ban said.

During the year, Ban said, he has placed special emphasis on ethics and set the highest standards of disclosure and transparency.

"We have new standardized ethics policies governing the secretariat as well as the funds and programs," he said. "We will seek over the coming year to put it on permanent footing, with full investigative independence."

On climate change, Ban said, he has made the fight against global warming his top priority, focusing world attention on this defining issue of the era.

In addition to hosting more than 80 heads of state at the U.N.'s High Level Meeting on Climate Change in New York, Ban also traveled to Antarctica, the Amazon, the Andes, Lake Chad and the Great Man-made River in Libya to "dramatize the scale of the problem."

Ban said of his launching the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which garnered another Nobel Peace Prize for the U.N., and of his efforts" to galvanize global public opinion and political will in advance of the all-important climate change conference in Bali, where world leaders took a vital first step toward reaching a comprehensive climate change accord by 2009.

"This is the year's key achievement," Ban said.

On the Millennium Development Goals and human rights, Ban said, he would "devote great effort to strengthening the U.N.'s role in development" in the coming year.

"For the poorest of the world's poor, economic and social advancement should be considered an innate human right," he said. "I have appointed a full-time Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and launched a global awareness campaign for the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Ban said he visited half a dozen of U.N. peacekeeping missions around the world and "worked behind-the-scenes to help launch the recent Annapolis peace talks, particularly in convincing regional leaders to attend."

The U.N. chief also stressed his efforts in addressing the Darfur issue.

"No geopolitical issue has absorbed more of my time than Darfur," Ban said. "The challenge for the coming year is to work continuously with the Sudan government, rebel movements, representatives of civil society and regional leaders, as well as the U.N. Security Council and the international community, to ensure the ultimate success of both the talks and the military mission."