There is significant potential to be leveraged in the accelerated and sustainable industrial development of Africa, and many possibilities existed for tapping the continent’s vast potential, said speakers today during a Headquarters press conference on the occasion of the Africa Industrialization Day 2010, commemorated tomorrow, 20 November.

In an effort to bolster “intellectual social responsibility” for such global goals as promoting human rights, protecting the environment and ending wars, the United Nations had partnered with institutions of higher learning around the world in a new initiative called Academic Impact, Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

The Secretary-General will travel to Lisbon, Portugal, this weekend, where he will attend the high-level meeting on Afghanistan, to be held under the aegis of NATO. He will also participate in the joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and hold several bilateral meetings with world leaders gathered in Lisbon.

Looking ahead to December’s conference on climate change, in Cancun, Mexico, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning Robert C. Orr said today that the international community could expect “concrete results” in some areas, but that there was no “silver bullet” for the climate challenge.

The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, will visit Haiti tomorrow and Wednesday to review the humanitarian response to the cholera outbreak.

About 4.5 million voters would be able to head to more than 11,000 polling stations in nearly 1,500 districts throughout Haiti to cast a vote in the 28 November presidential and legislative elections, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told reporters at a Headquarters press conference today, via video teleconference from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

Building a wide range of partnerships — in particular with the private sector — was critical to ending violence against women and girls, said participants that included civil society and corporate leaders at a Headquarters press conference today.

The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, has been in Haiti since yesterday. She is there to highlight the need for a much stronger international and national response to the cholera epidemic.

The international community must go beyond “business as usual” and develop a new international development architecture because current economic regimes had not worked in favour of least developed countries in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis, United Nations officials stressed during a Headquarters press conference today.

The Secretary-General welcomes the holding of the second round of the presidential election in Côte d'Ivoire, despite some violent incidents in various areas of the country. He calls on the Ivorian parties and candidates to refrain from announcing the results in advance of the Independent Electoral Commission.