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What’s Ahead @ ESCAP UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific |
www.unescap.org |
June
2006 |
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 UNESCAP
to inaugurate Asian and Pacific Training Centre for ICT for Development
Executive
Secretary Kim Hak-Su will formally open UNESCAP’s newest
regional institution - the Asian
and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology
for Development (APCICT) - on 16 June in Incheon, Republic
of Korea. APCICT is expected to contribute to bridging the digital
divide by providing training to policy makers, ICT professionals and
trainers, and sharing the Republic of Korea’s best practices
in the area of ICT development with member countries. One of five UNESCAP regional
institutions, APCICT is supported financially by the Republic
of Korea and will be the first UN office based in that country. According
to Mr. Kim, “APCICT’s location will help it benefit from
Government and private sector expertise in the Republic of Korea,
as well as other countries in Asia that are world leaders in information
technology.” |
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| E-business
in Greater Mekong subregion focuses on enterprise support agencies
A Regional
Training Workshop for Enterprise Support Agencies to Promote E-Business
in the Greater Mekong Subregion will be held in Bangkok from
26-28 June. The project aims to raise awareness and build capacity
of enterprise support agencies on e-business and assist them in the
development of an e-business service as one of their enterprise development
services for SMEs. Among the expected participants are 24 managers
and trainers from such enterprise support agencies as chambers of
commerce, business associations, and training institutions in Cambodia,
Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Yunnan Province of China. |
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 UNESCAP
publishes toolkit on commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC)
The Gender
and Development Section of UNESCAP’s Emerging
Social Issues Division has just published a toolkit
on the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC).
According to the authors, the toolkit can serve as a user-friendly
and functional reference for key actors seeking to learn from past
practice and adapt the lessons to fit local and national contexts.
UNESCAP expects that the promotion of this knowledge and these experiences
during this critical juncture in the region, as new forms of sexual
exploitation and abuse of children emerge, will help equip countries
in taking sound and practical steps to work toward the elimination
of the phenomenon. Contact the Gender and Development Section at gad@un.org for more information or to obtain a copy. |
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 Executive
Secretary to lead delegation to Ministerial meeting on poorest countriesUNESCAP will send a delegation headed by Executive
Secretary Kim Hak-Su to the Ministerial
Conference of the Least Developed Countries on the Midterm Comprehensive
Global Review of the Implementation of the Programme of Action for
the LDCs for the Decade 2001-2010, scheduled to be held in
Cotonou, Benin, from 5-8 June. Mr. Kim will address the opening ceremony
of the Ministerial Session of the Conference, along with Beninian
Foreign Minister H.E. Madam Mariam Aladji Boni Diallo, the UNDP
Administrator, the Executive Secretary of the UN
Economic Commission for Africa, and the High
Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing
Countries and Small Islands States, among others. The meeting
in Benin is taking place after regional preparatory meetings were
held in Addis Ababa and Bangkok earlier this year. According to the UN, the Ministerial Conference
in Cotonou is a critical juncture in the preparations for the UN General
Assembly’s comprehensive global midterm review of the Brussels
Programme which will take place in September. Of the 50 least
developed countries (LDCs) in the world, 14 are located in the UNESCAP
region.
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 ‘Uniting
world against AIDS’ theme of high-level meeting in New York
‘Uniting
the world against AIDS’ is the theme of the 2006
High-level Meeting on AIDS, which will take place in New York
from 31 May-2 June. The meeting will follow up on the implementation
of the Declaration
of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, adopted by UN Member States in
2001 at the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS. This
year UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to present a report
to the General Assembly on progress made until the end of 2005, when
the first set of targets in the Declaration were due. The 2006 High-Level
Meeting will be a comprehensive review of the progress achieved in
realizing the targets set out in the Declaration and will identify
common challenges to scaling up and sustaining national AIDS responses.
At the meeting UNESCAP will be represented by its Health
and Development Section. |
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 High-level
forum for South-East Asian statisticians set for Bangkok
A
High-Level Forum on Strategic Planning in Statistics for South-East
Asian Countries will be held in Bangkok at the UN Conference
Centre from 6-8 June. Co-organized by the Partnership in Statistics for
Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) and UNESCAP’s
Statistics Division, the meeting aims to assess the current
status of strategic statistical planning in the subregion, identify
the successes and constraints being experienced in implementing existing
plans, and consider solutions to those constraints and practical next
steps. It is the second of four subregional, high-level forums on
strategic planning for statistics for Asian countries, funded by a UNDP-managed Japanese trust
fund. UNESCAP and PARIS21 are collaborating with the Thai
National Statistical Office and the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in organizing the forum.
The genesis of the meeting is the Marrakech
Action Plan for Statistics, which calls for all low-income
countries to have a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics
(NSDS) by 2006.
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Special
Observances and Meetings |
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The views expressed in this
publication do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies
of the United Nations. The information contained herein may be freely
reproduced. What’s Ahead @ ESCAP is published monthly
by the United Nations Information Services Bangkok. Tel: +(66-2) 288-1861-66
• Fax: +(66-2) 288-1052 • E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org
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