Officials Discuss New Direction for ESCAP

BANGKOK(United Nations Information Services)-- New directions in the work of ESCAP  was on top of the agenda on the second day of ESCAP's 57th Commission.

Mr. Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of ESCAP explained his new vision and direction for ESCAP focussing on the alleviation of poverty; reinforcing the weakening positions of developing countries arising from the process of globalization; detecting and tackling emerging issues and increased use of information technology.

Many delegates attending the Senior Officials Meeting said they supported the fresh plans to revitalize ESCAP's programme delivery.

The Senior Officials today discussed how these emerging issues of the region can be synchronized with the work of ESCAP.

The subjects under discussion are regional economic cooperation; environment and natural resources development, statistics, socio-economic measures to alleviate poverty in rural and urban areas; transport, communications, tourism and infrastructure development and least developed, landlocked and island developing countries.

The issues and developments at the regional level will be presented to the Ministerial Segment of the Commission which starts from Monday, 23 April to Wednesday, 25 April.

Editors please note

23 April 2001
08.45 – 9:30 hrs.    Opening of the Ministerial Segment by Thai Prime Minister  H.E. Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra

Approx. 09.40 hrs.  H.E. the Prime Minister opens the exhibition on “United for Human Security in Asia and the Pacific”.

15:00 – 17:00 hrs.   Regional preparation for the Special Session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS

17:00 – 17:30 hrs.   ESCAP HRD Award presentation ceremony will be presided over by ESCAP’s Executive Secretary Mr. Kim Hak-Su and H.E. Mr. Kiyohiro Araki, Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan

17:30 – 18:00 hrs.    Press conference on the special session HIV/AIDS