Press Conference

The political commitment to achieve better conditions for women must be backed by a financial commitment from United Nations Member States, including generating the minimum start-up budget of $500 million to get the world body’s new unified gender entity — “UN Women” — up and running by January 2011, the agency’s newly appointed chief said today.

At a Headquarters press conference today, members of the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity introduced an honorary ambassador to correspondents and announced the winners of the Midori Prize for Biodiversity.

Venezuela had met its development goals and was at the forefront of erasing inequality and extreme poverty, thanks to promotion of an alternative development model, Jorge Valero Briceño, Venezuela’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said this afternoon during a Headquarters news conference. “Under the leadership of President Hugo Chávez Frías, Venezuela has met most of the Millennium Development Goals,” he said.

Nigeria’s underdeveloped infrastructure provided a prime opportunity for investment, according to the country’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Henry Odein Ajumogobia. “Nigeria is stable,” Mr. Ajumogobia said at a Headquarters press conference today. “We have come through a difficult period at the end of last year, but the new President has with a steady hand brought peace and security to many parts of the Niger Delta, which was an area that had created concern.”

With the very fabric of nature being torn apart at an alarming rate, urgent action, smartly allocated funds and a common vision for the long-term future were required to preserve the world’s precious, often irreplaceable, biological systems, experts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) said at a Headquarters press conference today.

Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma, speaking at a Headquarters press conference today, said the world had an “obligation” to use international forums, round tables and debates to reach a common understanding on economic, social, cultural and environmental issues.

A high-level event on the Central African Republic to be held later today was aimed at re-energizing international support for the country’s emergence from strife and poverty, officials involved in that effort said at Headquarters this afternoon.

Despite the global economic and financial crisis, the world trade system had remained open, with only minimal protectionist slippages, Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, said today. “As we all know, the media doesn’t like speeches, they like news. This is why I decided to come to New York with a speech for the United Nations General Assembly, but with news for you,” he said at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

During a Headquarters press conference today, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, Chief Executive Officer of The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), called for increased emphasis to be placed on the regional dimensions of the broader effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The Chief of the Treaty Section in the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs,Gabriele Goettsche-Wanli, and the Liaison Officer for the international Convention on Biodiversity, Nandhini Krishna, expressed hope for increased participation at both the upcoming Annual Treaty Event and Biodiversity Summit, at a Headquarters press conference today.