Press Conference

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference held in New York today, 24 May:

Presenting the results of two recent independent, peer-reviewed studies at Headquarters today, the Pew Environment Group said that regional fisheries management organizations were failing in their mandated task of regulating fishing on the high seas, with significant loopholes and lax enforcement allowing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing to continue.

Michael Adlerstein, Executive Director of the Capital Master Plan, provided an update today on the work of his office as it entered the construction phase of the Secretariat and Conference buildings. At a Headquarters press conference, he outlined current and upcoming changes for both pedestrians and vehicles in accessing the Secretariat campus, and stressed that safety and health were paramount in the work of his Office.

The first Preparatory Committee in the run-up to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known as “Rio + 20”, had decided at its conclusion last night to hold intersessional consultations, since the eight days originally allocated for preparatory meetings would not be enough, Committee Co-Chair John Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda) said at Headquarters today.

Despite commitments made 20 years ago at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, a lack of action by several organizations and Governments highlighted a strong need for the upcoming “Rio + 20” Conference to remobilize stakeholders and build upon the economic, social and environmental pillars, said the Executive Director of Vitae Civilis of Brazil.

As the rest of the world begins to shake off the worst effects of the global economic and financial crisis, a United Nations report launched today argues that Africa should position itself for long-term development by pursuing an employment-intensive strategy prioritizing sustained growth and increased job-creation.

A two-day meeting on the African perspectives on security sector reform ended in New York today with agreement that, if such processes were to be sustainable and viable, they must be built on the basis of national ownership, Adedeji Ebo, Chief of the Security Sector Reform Unit of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, said at a Headquarters press conference today.

While pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden had fallen from 20 per month in the summer of 2009, to between 4 and 5 today, the tenacity of pirates and level of their violence against mariners had changed over the years, said Rear Admiral Peter Hudson, Operations Commander of the European Union Naval Force in Somalia (EU NAVFOR) — Operation Atalanta, expressing hope that other countries would share in the asset-sapping task of combating the problem.

Boosting the recycling rates of both everyday and specialty metals — from the cooper used to wire our homes to the lithium needed for battery packs in hybrid cars — would be critical to moving the global economy towards clean, environmentally friendly technologies, experts on United Nations-backed panel said today.

The adoption of a resolution this morning by the General Assembly to convene a high-level summit in September 2011 on the issue of prevention and control of non-communicable diseases was a “momentous and historical” occasion, not only for the world, but also for the Caribbean community which had taken the lead on the issue, Marina Annette Valère, Permanent Representative of Trinidad and Tobago said today during a press conference at Headquarters.