Commissaris Michel aanwezig bij bespreking over hervorming VN (en)

dinsdag 4 april 2006

Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, will join Prime Ministers and Ministers from around the globe at a High Level Panel to take forward UN reform on 4/5/6th April.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, appointed the 15 member panel to recommend how the UN's work in development, humanitarian assistance and environment be restructured. The appointment of Louis Michel is recognition of his personal role in supporting the United Nations and multilateralism, as well as recognition of the European Community as a major political player in Development cooperation and the world's biggest donor.

The Panel provides a unique opportunity to make tangible progress in UN reform. It will be co-chaired by the Prime Ministers of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, Mozambique, Luisa Dias Diogo, and Norway, Jens Stoltenberg.

Other members are:

  • - 
    Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer;
  • - 
    Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile;
  • - 
    Mohamed El-Ashry, Former Chairman and CEO of the Global Environment Facility;
  • - 
    Robert Greenhill, President of the Canadian International Development Agency;
  • - 
    Ruth Jacoby, Director General for Development Cooperation of Sweden;
  • - 
    Benjamin W. Mpaka, former President of Tanzania;
  • - 
    Jean-Michel Severino, Director General of the French Development Agency;
  • - 
    Keizo Takemi, Former State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Japan;
  • - 
    Josette Shiner, Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, US Department of State;
  • - 
    Kemal Dervis, Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP);
  • - 
    Lennart Båge, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The 1st meeting will take place at the UN Headquarters in New York on April 4-6th. All members, including Louis Michel, are participating in their personal capacity.

At the 2005 UN World Summit global leaders called for greater coherence across all the UN agencies, funds and programmes that deal with development. The High Level Panel will respond to this call by making concrete recommendations to the UN General Assembly on how the UN system can work more coherently and effectively in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and environment.

The study will analyse the UN's operational work and recommend how it should be fundamentally restructured. The overriding objective is the rationalisation of UN systems, as much from an organisational as a financial perspective. It will also make recommendations on how field level operations can be made more effective and propose more tightly managed entities for development, humanitarian assistance and environment.

The recommendations will focus on ensuring the UN maximises its contribution to achieving internationally agreed development goals (including the Millennium Development goals) and will complement other major UN reform initiatives currently under way, such as the new Human Rights Council.

The panel will complete its work by the end of the summer, in time to present its recommendations to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006, for possible implementation from 2007.

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