Disaster risk reduction was crucial to protect gains made in reaching the Millennium Development Goals, especially in poor countries where capacities were low and massive losses would only perpetuate a cycle of poverty and disempowerment, General Assembly President Joseph Deiss said today at a Headquarters press conference.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
A blossoming partnership between the United Nations and a global youth sporting summit was set to boost activism and encourage dialogue among young people, the event’s founder said at a Headquarters press conference.
In a move hailed as an important first step towards the protection of children in Afghanistan, that country’s Government recently signed a landmark agreement to release children from the national security forces, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, said today at a Headquarters press conference.
As the United Nations kicked off the International Year of Forests today at Headquarters, a renowned environmental activist urged Governments and other stakeholders worldwide to take action to protect the planet’s vital forestry resources on which 1.6 billion depended for their livelihood and subsistence.
Leading environmental activists lauded today the Rwandan Government’s plan to restore all of the steadily recovering Central African nation’s lost forest lands and boost national development as a far-sighted move that should be replicated by other Governments.
The opening for signature of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing was an example of what the United Nations was capable of accomplishing when Member States worked together, even when holding different opinions, senior officials from Japan and Colombia said today.
While presiding over the Security Council in February, Brazil’s emphasis would be on the relationship between security and development, with the aim of evolving a more comprehensive approach to issues of peace and security, the country’s Permanent Representative said at a Headquarters press conference today as she outline the programme of work for the month.
The International Year of Forests was launched at United Nations Headquarters in New York on a day when ice, rain and snow were blanketing the region, yet the point of the observance was to heighten awareness of the value of forests in people’s lives and to galvanize action for forests around the world, correspondents heard today at a press conference highlighting the Forest Film Festival.
The latest report of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), entitled True Economic Value of Forests, was premised on the notion that a better evaluation of what forests were worth would generate direct benefits for poor forest dwellers, open up new markets and affect global economic growth, correspondents learned today at a Headquarters press conference.
Bolivia would continue its campaign to remove from a United Nations convention a ban on coca leaf chewing and take its case to the Economic and Social Council, if necessary, Pablo Solón, the country’s Permanent Representative said today at a Headquarters press conference. “Coca leaf chewing is a tradition and cultural practice that should be respected,” Mr. Solón said, sporting a green coca leaf on his lapel.