With efforts “creeping along too slowly” to boost the number of women politicians and deepen the level of women’s participation in political affairs, senior United Nations and parliamentary officials today made strong calls on Governments and political parties to demonstrate the will and courage to bring more women to the decision-making table, particularly in the Arab World.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
Challenges and opportunities in North Africa and the Middle East and the situations in Somalia, Haiti and Afghanistan would be highlighted at the Security Council in March, the permanent representative of the United Kingdom, which holds the body’s rotating presidency for the month, told correspondents this afternoon.
Expecting to welcome its 7,000th corporate participant this week, the United Nations Global Compact had sent out a call to companies still doubtful about sustainability issues to “come down from the fence” and join the movement, Executive Georg Kell said at a Headquarters press conference today.
“I feel like they stole something from me,” said a young Guinean survivor of female genital mutilation today, as she calmly recounted the experience of being cut by a village doctor at the age of five, and appealed strongly for African Governments to take the lead in bringing the dangerous centuries-old practice to an end.
Representatives from government, the business sector and civil society were meeting at United Nations headquarters to examine how each sector could collaborate in partnership to address youth unemployment, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press conference today.
Dramatic positive changes in Myanmar had demonstrated “an unprecedented level of initiative”, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on that country, Vijay Nambiar, told reporters at a Headquarters press conference today after returning from a five-day visit.
Launching a school competition intended to create awareness of the links connecting sports, peace and development, representatives of a Spanish non-governmental organization stressed today the importance of transmitting United Nations values to future generations.
In an effort to mobilize the potential of the African diaspora to help revitalize their ancestral homeland and spur the growth and empowerment of people of African descent worldwide, the African Union would organize a first-ever global summit on the topic in May, the President of the Pan-African Parliament said today at Headquarters.
With a food crisis looming over Africa’s Sahel belt and potentially threatening up to 12 million people, a senior United Nations humanitarian affairs official said today that, even as regional Governments moved swiftly to put resilience-building strategies in place, the wider international community must take “decisive and generous” action to ward off disaster.
After lodging protests against what he described as the United Kingdom’s militarization of the South Atlantic with the leadership of major United Nations bodies, Argentina’s Minister for Foreign Affairs called today for the start of dialogue on the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands (Falklands).