Inspired by the annual World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development — on 21 May — a Madrid-based non-governmental organization announced today that its international school award competition for 2013 would aim to teach children about the importance of artistic expression in building a harmonious world.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
After a four-day trip to Mali, a top United Nations humanitarian official told reporters today at Headquarters that, although he had been there to coordinate the humanitarian response, “development is the solution” for the people of that West African country and humanitarian assistance only helped build the foundation for that solution.
Quinoa was “food for life” and its 7,000-year history was proof people never had to go hungry, Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales Ayma, told correspondents today at a Headquarters press conference as part of the launch of the International Year of Quinoa.
The Security Council should consider climate change as a threat to international peace and security, particularly for such low-lying nations as the Marshall Islands whose “very existence” was at risk, a Government minister from that country said at a Headquarters press conference today.
Citing an unprecedented number of journalists imprisoned or killed around the world in 2012 — 232 and 70, respectively — experts at a Headquarters press conference today stressed that the United Nations must make press freedom and the fight against impunity a priority in its post-2015 development agenda.
On Thursday, 14 February, the Deputy Secretary-General will participate in an event calling for firm global action to end all forms of violence against women and girls. The event is sponsored by UN Women and the Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, and takes place at 12:30 p.m. at the north end of the UN Secretariat lobby.
Integrating the three pillars of sustainable development into United Nations development efforts would underpin the work of the Economic and Social Council in 2013, the organ’s newly elected President said at Headquarters today.
The global community should recognize the vital importance of water cooperation to peace, security and the achievement of Millennium Development Goals, experts said today at a Headquarters press conference upon the United Nations launch of the International Year of Water Cooperation.
Briefing reporters at Headquarters today, the United Nations political chief cited movement on the Government’s road map to heal divisions in Mali, and the recent tentative offer by the Syrian opposition to open negotiations with the Assad Government as signs of positive developments in two of the world’s major crisis flashpoints.
In a Headquarters briefing today that focused on the role in 2013 of United Nations peacekeeping in Mali, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Head of the Department said there was a shared desire in the international community to do what needed to be done in Mali to end the conflict and resolve the issues that provoked it, and that a United Nations peacekeeping operation was “the way to go”.