Note to Correspondents

President of Bolivia to Attend as General Assembly Launches

 

International Year of Quinoa, 29 October

 

The global launch of the 2013 International Year of Quinoa will take place on 29 October with a special meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. 

The United Nations Academic Impact of the Department of Public Information will then host a symposium on quinoa.  Among those attending are Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia and Special Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for the International Year, Nadine Heredia Alarcón de Humala, First Lady of Peru and FAO Special Ambassador for the International Year, Javier Ponce Cevallos, Minister of Agriculture of Ecuador, and Raúl Osvaldo Benítez, FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Organized jointly with the Permanent Mission of Bolivia to the United Nations, the symposium will be held from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium at United Nations Headquarters, and will feature speakers from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Fair Trade USA and Fair Spirits Inc.

The Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, will chair the meeting.

Quinoa, a natural food high in nutritional value, has been maintained, protected and preserved by the Andean indigenous people through their traditional knowledge and practices of living well, in harmony with nature.  The General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/66/221, adopted on 22 December 2011, affirmed the need to focus world attention on the role that quinoa can play in providing food security and nutrition, and in the eradication of poverty.  In declaring 2013 the International Year of Quinoa, the Assembly also affirmed the need to heighten public awareness of the nutritional, economic, environmental and cultural properties of quinoa.

The symposium on quinoa is open to the public, but requires registration.  Those interested in attending are requested to contact the United Nations Academic Impact by e-mail at academicimpact@un.org, or by telephone at +1 212 963 6555.

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For information media • not an official record