Kuwait Times

Published Date: October 22, 2008
By Nawara Fattahova, Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The United Nations is celebrating UN Day on Oct 24 worldwide. On this occasion, the United Nations Country Team in Kuwait held a press conference yesterday at the Radisson SAS Hotel to provide information on the UN's activities in Kuwait.

Valerie Cliff, the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the United Nations Development Program's Resident Representative in Kuwait launched the conference with commenting on the message of the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

This year, the UN is now midway through the global efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. "The Millennium Development Goals serve as an internationally agreed and recognized common agenda and action plan aimed at reducing poverty around the world by half," said Cliff.

Eight years ago, world leaders convened at the United Nations in New York and set ambitious goals to free humankind from hunger, illiteracy, disease, disempowerment and environmental degradation by 2015. "Today, we have many successes on which to build such as the measles vaccinations that have prevented 7.5 million deaths, the inroads against HIV/AIDS, and surging school enrolment in several African countries, following the abolition of school fees," she added.

Their mission helped even more people. "Millions of poor households have risen out of extreme poverty, not just in China and India, but in many countries, including some of the poorest. We are on the way to cutting extreme poverty and hunger in half by 2015, as the Millennium Development Goals had summoned us to do," stressed Cliff.

Poor people around the world look to their governments and to the United Nations for help and solidarity. "Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds. Yet we are getting closer to containing this scourge. With enhanced efforts we may achieve full coverage by 2010 and virtually end malaria deaths by 2015. Now, what we are doing with malaria, we should do with education, maternal health, climate and agriculture. We must repeat this positive story and ensure that all of the eight Millennium Development Goals are
achieved throughout the world by 2015," she noted.

This is a crucial year in the life of our United Nations. "We can see more clearly than ever that the threats of the 21st century spare no one. We have climate change, the spread of disease, deadly weapons, and the scourge of terrorism across all borders. If we want to advance the global common good, we must secure global public goods," addressed Cliff from Ban Ki-Moon's message.

Since its establishment in Kuwait in 1991, and signing the cooperation agreement with the government of Kuwait in June 1994, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) mission had conducted several activities and programs. "These activities are with relevant Kuwaiti counterparts in the following areas: Organizing Labor Migration, Assistance for Victims of Trafficking, Building the Training Capacity for Government staff, International Migration Law and Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergency Assistance,
External Medical Evacuation for vulnerable cases, and many others," said Fawzi Al-Zioud, who is the Officer in Charge of the IOM office which is the International Organization of Migration.

The IOM is implementing its activities in Kuwait in close coordination with the following Kuwaiti agencies: The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Human Rights Organizations.

Among most important and recent IOM interventions, and in close cooperation with the government of Sri Lanka, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor and the Ministry of Interior has provided repatriation assistance to 350 vulnerable Sri Lankan migrants stranded in Kuwait who lost their legal visa status in Kuwait. The migrants were covered by an amnesty extended by the Kuwaiti government and have left the country voluntarily to Colombo before 15 October, 2008," Al-Zioud added.