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.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
The United Nations today appointed Disney actress and youth activist Monique Coleman the Organization’s first-ever “Youth Champion” for the International Year of Youth, which began on 12 August.
Experts agreed that the number of cholera cases in Haiti would continue to rise, Nigel Fisher, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General ad interim, said today at a Headquarters press conference.
Humanitarian supplies are being prepositioned at key locations in Sudan ahead of an expected referendum in the event of a possible mass movement of southern Sudanese from the north to the south, Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said today.
More naval ships and aircraft were needed to confront Somali-based pirates who were expanding their area of operations into the Indian Ocean and, possibly, working in collaboration with terrorist groups, the Chairman of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia said today at a Headquarters press conference.