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United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs Fellowship Programme to Enhance Expertise of Young Diplomats Begins Final Segment at Headquarters, 10 October

NEW YORK, 10 October (Office for Disarmament Affairs) — The annual United Nations Disarmament Fellowship Programme will commence its final segment today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Young diplomats and other public officials from the following Member States are participating in the 2016 Programme: Afghanistan, Algeria, Australia, Bahrain, Burundi, Cameroon, Chile, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Paraguay, Republic of Moldova, South Africa, United States and Zambia, as well as the Holy See.

The New York segment aims to familiarize the participating Fellows with the work of the General Assembly’s First Committee (Disarmament and International Security).  Besides attending Committee meetings, they will follow presentations and briefings on a wide range of disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation issues by senior diplomats and United Nations officials, including the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, and representatives of civil society and academia.  The Fellows will also participate in a panel on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and attend other events associated with the First Committee.

In addition, the Fellows will be engaged in practical exercises, including a simulation of the “2016 Open-ended Working Group taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations”.  They will also be finalizing their individual research papers on topics of their choice relating to disarmament and international security.

The Fellowship Programme’s initial segment started on 22 August in Geneva, where the Fellows were briefed on the work of the Conference on Disarmament and different treaty regimes, such as the Biological Weapons Convention, the Mine Ban Convention, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Arms Trade Treaty.

The Fellows also participated in a one-day study visit to Bern, organized by Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.  The Geneva segment was followed by study visits to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Zangger Committee, as well as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Vienna.

Briefings on disarmament and other related issues were also organized by representatives of the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.  Subsequently, the Fellows participated in study visits to Germany, China, Republic of Korea and Japan at the invitation of their respective Governments.

The United Nations Fellowships Programme, launched by the General Assembly in 1978, aims to promote national disarmament expertise in Member States, particularly in developing countries.  Implemented by the Office for Disarmament Affairs, it has, in the 38 years of its existence, trained 956 public officials from 165 Member States, a large number of whom now hold important positions of responsibility in the disarmament field within their own Governments.  The Programme has enabled former Fellows to participate more effectively in regional and global disarmament efforts, and by creating an informal network spanning the various regions of the world, to work cooperatively and constructively in pursuit of disarmament and non-proliferation goals.

After completing the Programme at Headquarters on 28 October, the 2016 Fellows will be awarded certificates of participation by Kim Won-soo, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

For further information, please contact Peter Kolarov, Coordinator of the Fellowship Programme, Office for Disarmament Affairs, at tel.: +41 79 477 0831; or Jenny Fuchs, Office for Disarmament Affairs, Room S-3170, at tel.: +1 212 963 2386.

For information media. Not an official record.