Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will travel to Geneva on Sunday to participate in meetings of the UN Secretary General''s Panel on UN System-wide Coherence and address the High Level Segment of the UN Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc).
During his July 2-5 stay here, he will also address a prestigious Swiss think-tank, the Pakistani community, European business leaders besides interaction with local and foreign media. Shaukat Aziz is the co-chairperson of the UN high-level panel with his Norwegian counterpart Jens Stoltenberg and his Mozambican counterpart Luísa Dias Diogo.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan established the 15-member panel of world leaders and personalities in February 2006 to explore how the UN could work more coherently and effectively in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and the environment.
This was called for in the Outcome Document adopted by global leaders at the 2005 World summit in New York, and is intended to lay the groundwork for a fundamental restructuring of the UN.
The panel after seeking inputs from member states and world organisations would prepare its recommendations that are likely to be presented to the next session of the UN General Assembly in September this year. In Geneva, the panel will follow up on its extensive discussions in New York and Madrid earlier this year.
The panel has an extremely busy schedule in Geneva where it will undertake important and detailed discussions. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz''s schedule in Geneva also includes an address to the High Level Segment of the Ecosoc on "Working out Poverty."
Shaukat Aziz''s address will focus on Pakistan''s national experience on poverty alleviation as well as his vision for a global strategy to eliminate poverty. Pakistan had been playing an active role in the Ecosoc deliberations aimed at advancing the international development agenda.
The very fact that Pakistan held the presidency of the 54-member grouping five times - last time in 2005 - bespeaks of the positive role it had conventionally played in building unity and consensus on important issues of peace and development.
Besides attending the UN meetings, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will give a talk on "Pakistan: A Rising Nation" at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, a leading think-tank. His talk will focus on all aspects of Pakistan''s economic and political landscape. Leading intellectuals, policy-makers, heads of UN agencies and diplomats are expected to attend the talk. The prime minister will also address the Pakistani community in Switzerland and brief them on national and foreign policy issues.
On this last day of his stay in Geneva, he will address a conference of European and Swiss business leaders, financiers and investors to highlight Pakistan''s business-friendly environment. Shaukat Aziz will also have wide interaction with representatives of Geneva-based international and local TV networks, television and newspapers.
"The prime minister''s visit to Geneva is of great importance and has both international and national dimensions," ambassador and Pakistan''s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Masood Khan said a day ahead of the visit, while referring to UN High Level Panel and Ecosoc meetings and his interaction with the local think-tank and European business leaders. In the Ecosoc meeting, the envoy said, the prime minister will talk about international vision and strategy for eliminating poverty.
"He is mainly coming to Geneva to co-chair the UN high-level panel on system-wide coherence and this panel is considering ways and means injecting and introducing coherence in the UN system so that the UN in these three areas (development, humanitarian assistance and environment) becomes more effective and efficient," he added.
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