Note to Correspondents

FOUNDATIONS ANNOUNCE FUNDING OF $2 MILLION TO BRING TECHNOLOGY

 

TO FRONT LINES OF UNITED NATIONS EMERGENCY RESPONSE

 

The United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Group Foundation announced today a five-year plan that offers the latest in telecommunications technology to support United Nations emergency response missions worldwide, through funding to Télécoms Sans Frontières, a humanitarian non-governmental organization equipped to deploy rapid response telecommunication teams within 48 hours of a disaster anywhere in the world.

The two foundations will provide approximately $2 million to Télécoms Sans Frontières over five years, making the teams available in coordination with two United Nations agencies:  the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“There is an urgent need for food, water, shelter, protection and medical help in emergencies,” said Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF.  “None of these things are possible without quick and reliable communications.  Rapid communications saves lives.”

Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said, “As demonstrated recently in Suriname and Indonesia, this programme will provide reliable telecom services so responders can more effectively do their jobs and save lives in the first days of an emergency.”  He continued, “This is the kind of successful public-private partnership we need as we confront increasingly challenging emergencies around the world.”

Through the Rapid Response Communications Centre, up to four Télécoms Sans Frontières teams will deploy with the United Nations to natural disasters and humanitarian crises anywhere in the world.  These teams of telecom experts will be among the first to drop into emergency areas and will rapidly establish and maintain emergency telecommunication centres that provide the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and government responders with reliable voice, internet, fax, and video connections using satellite, WiFi, and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) equipment.  Relief workers rely on these centres for response and relief assessment, logistics and coordination.

“Vodafone is committed to changing lives in communities across the world,” said Andrew Dunnett, Director of the Vodafone Group Foundation.  He added that the partnership with the other entities enabled sharing of charitable funds, expertise and technology.  “We look forward to its transforming effect and the tangible benefits it will bring to some of the most needy and desperate situations on Earth,” he said.

The President of the United Nations Foundation, Timothy E. Wirth, said:  “This collaboration is a perfect example of how the United Nations Foundation can foster public-private partnerships that pair valuable resources, knowledge and experience of organizations with the lifesaving work of the United Nations.  This initiative offers the United Nations the ability to respond quickly to humanitarian needs in a smart, cost-effective way.”

The President and co-founder of Télécoms Sans Frontières, Jean-François Cazenave, said:  “We are pleased to be a part of this partnership to continue our work with the United Nations.  Today, new technologies, the miniaturization of components and the increasing development of satellite networks enable highly mobile teams to respond to emergency communication needs in all circumstances, anywhere in the world.”

Teams funded by the two foundations have already been deployed four times to assist the United Nations in 2006; in May, to support a response mission after torrential flooding in Suriname; to Indonesia in June in response to a massive 6.2 earthquake; in August, to support the United Nations humanitarian mission under the United Nations Emergency Telecom Cluster in Lebanon; and, again in August, to re-establish telecom services to support the United Nations humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the disarmament that allowed humanitarian assistance to resume and the displaced population to return to their homes.

The United Nations Foundation was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support United Nations causes and activities.  The Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world’s most pressing problems, and also works to broaden support for the United Nations through advocacy and public outreach.  The United Nations Foundation is a public charity.

The Vodafone Group Foundation was created by Vodafone in 2001 to support charitable and community work by all Vodafone companies and their foundations, as well as funding selected charitable global initiatives directly.  It is a charitable foundation with its own board of trustees.  To date, the foundations have invested a total of over £60 million in social investments globally.

For more information about:  Télécoms Sans Frontières, visit http://www.tsfi.org/; the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, visit http://ochaonline.un.org/; UNICEF, visit http://www.unicef.org/; the United Nations Foundation, visit www.unfoundation.org.

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For information media • not an official record