Press Release

“This is not the time to question the validity of the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] themselves, but rather a time to roll up our sleeves and do what is necessary to attain them, and beyond that, to look at the question of ensuring that they are sustainable after 2015,” said Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, today at the conclusion of the sixty-third annual DPI/NGO Conference in Melbourne, Australia.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the sixty-third DPI/NGO Conference: “Advance Global Health: Achieve the MDGs”, in Melbourne, 30 August:

The following press statement on Somalia was issued today by Council President Vitaly Churkin (Russian Federation):

This statement was issued today by the Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on the resumption of permanent status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians:

Amid broad agreement that profound disparities in health and life expectancy between the citizens of developed and developing nations were wide and entrenched, a distinguished panel today debated the equity of the Millennium Development Goals for the poorest and most marginalized in society, as the sixty-third annual DPI/NGO Conference entered its second day.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to a General Assembly high-level meeting on launching the Global Plan of Action against Trafficking in Persons, in New York, 31 August:

On 13 August 2010, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo updated the List of individuals and entities subject to the travel ban and assets freeze imposed by paragraphs 13 and 15 of resolution 1596 (2005) as renewed by paragraph 3 of resolution 1896 (2009).

With the advantages of pooling efforts to create a unified and effective governance system for global health gaining traction, the DPI/NGO Conference today examined this concept in the context of strengthening an integrated and systems approach to achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals.

Broad agreement emerged this afternoon during a round table discussion at the Australia DPI/NGO Conference that non-governmental organizations were uniquely positioned to confront the intractable challenges to global health; but while they increasingly filled gaps around the world, they could not fill those alone.

“Advancing global health is essential to the Millennium Development Goals, and you are essential to advancing global health,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon via video message, thanking the 1,200 non-governmental organizations representatives in attendance at the sixty-third annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference in Melbourne, Australia.