United Nations Office at Geneva

United Nations Office at Geneva

The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) is the representative office of the United Nations in Geneva. With more than 1,600 staff, we are the biggest United Nations duty station outside of headquarters in New York and provide critical support to the Organization’s efforts. We service over 8,000 meetings every year, making UNOG one of the busiest intergovernmental conference centres in the world and a focal point for multilateral diplomacy. Together, we strive to strengthen our contribution towards realizing the vision of the United Nations for a more stable, secure and prosperous world for all.

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners.

World leaders have pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including the overarching goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015. UNDP's network links and coordinates global and national efforts to reach these Goals. Our focus is helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of:

Democratic Governance
Poverty Reduction
Crisis Prevention and Recovery
Environment and Energy
HIV/AIDS

UNDP helps developing countries attract and use aid effectively. In all our activities, we encourage the protection of human rights and the empowerment of women.

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Today, I'm want to tell you something about the Food and Agriculture Organization; short FAO!

The FAO was founded on 16 October 1945. It leads international efforts to defeat hunger. 

FAO is also a source of knowledge and information. They help developing countries. 

The world headquarters are located in Rome.

FAO's activities comprise four main areas:

- putting information within reach 

- sharing policy expertise

- providing a meeting place for nations

- bringing knowledge to the field 

Structure and finance

FAO is governed by the Conference of Member Nations, which meets every two years to review the work carried out by the Organization and approve a Programme of Work and Budget for the next two years.

The Conference elects a Council of 49 Member Nations to act as an interim governing body. Members serve three-year, rotating terms. The Conference also elects the Director-General to head the agency. The current Director-General, Dr Jacques Diouf, of Senegal, began a six-year term in January 1994, was re-elected to a second term which began in January 2000, and a third term beginning of January 2006

FAO’s Regular Programme budget is funded by its members, through contributions set at the FAO Conference. The FAO budget for the years 2008-2009 is US$929.8 million.

IMO

The International Maritime Organization is a specialised agency of the United Nations which is responsible for measures to improve the safety and security of international shipping and to prevent marine pollution. The IMO is also involved in legal matters, including liability and compensation issues, the facilitation of international maritime traffic and technical assistance.The IMO has 169 Members representing countries normally through their national maritime administrations. The main focus of the IMO is to develop and adopt international instruments or regulations for safe, secure and efficient shipping on clean oceans.

Homepage:

http://www.imo.org/

Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP)

Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, abbreviated to CPLP) is the intergovernmental organisation for friendship among Portuguese-speaking nations where Portuguese is an official language. The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to more than 223 million people located across the globe.
The CPLP was formed in 1996 with seven countries: Portugal, Brazil, the former colony in South America, and five former colonies in Africa — Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. East Timor joined the community in 2002 after gaining independence.
The CPLP is a bloc in the process of construction and the societies of the eight member nations have little knowledge of each other. One of the features of the CPLP is that its members are linked by a common language and shared cultural features, which form a bridge among countries separated by great distances and on different continents.
In 2005, during a meeting in Luanda, the ministers of culture of the eight countries declared the 5 May as the Lusophone Culture Day (Dia da Cultura Lusófona in Portuguese).
In July 2006, during the Bissau summit, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius were admitted as Associate Observers[1] along with 17 International associations and organizations considered as Consultative Observers.
When the CPLP was formed, Equatorial Guinea asked for observer status. Equatorial Guinea was a Portuguese colony from the 15th to 18th centuries and has some territories where Portuguese-based creole languages are spoken and cultural connections with São Tomé and Príncipe and Portugal are felt. Also, the country has recently cooperated with Portuguese-speaking African countries and Brazil at an educational level. At the CPLP summit of July 2004, in São Tomé and Príncipe, the member states agreed to change the statutes of the community to accept states as associate observers. Equatorial Guinea is in discussion for full membership.[2]
Mauritius, which was unknown to Europeans until the Portuguese sailed there and has strong connections with Mozambique, also obtained associate observer status in 2006.
In 2008, Senegal, with historical connections to Portuguese colonisation in Casamance, was admitted as Associate Observer.
In many developing Portuguese-speaking nations, Portuguese is the language of government and commerce which means that Portuguese speaking people from African nations can work and communicate with others in different parts of the world, especially in Portugal and Brazil, where the economies are stronger. Many leaders of Portuguese-speaking nations in Africa are fearful that language standards do not meet the fluency required and are therefore making it compulsory in schools so that a higher degree of fluency is achieved and young Africans will be able to speak a world language that will help them later in life.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

WMO in brief
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is the UN system's voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth's atmosphere, its interaction with the oceans, the climate it produces and the resulting distribution of water resources.
Since 24 January 2007, WMO has a membership of 188 Member States . Established in 1950, WMO became a section of the United Nations for meteorology (weather and climate), hydrology (water science) and related geophysical sciences.
As weather, climate and the water cycle know no political borders, international cooperation at a global scale is essential for the development of meteorology and hydrology as well as to share the benefits from their application. WMO provides the framework for such international cooperation.
Since its establishment, WMO has played an important and powerful role in contributing to the safety and well-being of humanity. Under WMO leadership, national organisations contribute to the protection of life and possessions against natural disasters, safeguard the environment and improve the economic and social well-being of all sectors of society such as food security, water resources and transport.
WMO supports cooperation for networks concerning meteorological observations, as well as the exchange, processing and standardization of related data. It also transfers information to public weather services, and discusses agriculture, aviation, shipping, the environment, water issues and the easing of the impacts of natural disasters.

For further information, please see WMO’s homepage:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html

The Antarctic Treaty

The Antarctic Treaty was signed in Washington on 1 December 1959 by the twelve countries whose scientists had been active in and around Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-58. It entered into force in 1961 and has since been acceded to by many other nations. The total number of Parties to the Treaty is now 47.

Some important provisions of the Treaty :

1. Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only
   
2. Freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end … shall continue
   
3. Scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made freely available