ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL MEETS 24 MARCH ON MEANS TO ATTACK RURAL POVERTY

Note to Correspondents

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL MEETS 24 MARCH ON MEANS TO ATTACK RURAL POVERTY

The 2003 focus of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on rural development as a key in the fight against poverty kicks off today at an open session attended by international experts.

Gordon Conway, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, delivers the opening keynote address.  Among the experts speaking in the morning session is the Columbia Earth Institute’s Pedro Sanchez, who has been appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to serve as Chairman of the Hunger Task Force of the United Nations Millennium Project.

Eveline Herfkens, Executive Coordinator of the Millennium Development Goals Campaign and Professor Alain de Janvry of the University of California at Berkeley give keynote addresses in the afternoon.  Also addressing ECOSOC in the afternoon is Sartaj Aziz, Senator of Pakistan and former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Finance and Agriculture of Pakistan.

Opening remarks in the morning are made by Ambassador Gert Rosenthal (Guatemala), the President of ECOSOC, and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Nitin Desai is the moderator of the session.

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Tim Wall of the Development Section of the United Nations Department of Public Information, tel:  1-212-963-5851; e-mail:  wallt@un.org.

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