End-of-year reception hosted by the Director-General

Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
Excellencies,
Dear colleagues,

My warmest welcome to all of you - the “Geneva family” - for this end of the year gathering.

I am very happy that so many of you accepted the invitation to celebrate our collective achievements and excellent collaboration.

2015 has been a special year for the United Nations:

•We celebrated the organisation’s 70th anniversary: this has been a year-long opportunity to reflect on the UN’s achievements and look ahead to future challenges across the three pillars of its work: peace and security, human rights and development.

Or, in Geneva language “Peace, rights and well-being”.

•In 2015, we received our new global roadmap, the SDGs, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and just recently the ‘Paris climate agreement’. These new frameworks will guide our work for the next decades and will require even closer cooperation amongst us.

2015 has also been a special year for UNOG :

•The number of Member States present in Geneva increased to 177. We raised the flags of two Observer States : the Holy See and the State of Palestine. We have had a growing number of Heads of State and Government visiting the Palais.

All of which shows an increased political engagement at the UN in Geneva and growing understanding of the value of what we all do here.

•En parallèle, nous avons ouvert les portes du Palais des Nations au public à maintes reprises. Pour la journée ‘Portes Ouvertes’ presque 20,000 personnes se sont joint à nous pour notre soixante-dixième anniversaire. Nous avons également ouvert les portes pour des évènements publics tel que l’entrainement pour la traditionnelle course de l’Escalade, à laquelle 3,700 personnes ont participé dans la joie et la bonne humeur.

•Notre année a également été ponctuée de presque 100 évènements culturels, dont l’inauguration de la sculpture “Rebirth” du Maître Michelangelo Pistoletto, ou le second concert pour les civilisations et les droits de l’homme.

Les ‘P5’ ont également organisé un concert pour célébrer l’anniversaire de l’ONU et ont démontré par la même occasion un remarquable esprit de coopération et d’unité. Un superbe exemple pour nos collègues à New York !

•We launched the Geneva Gender Champions initiative, a new and powerful leadership network dedicated to making gender equality a priority throughout the multilateral diplomatic work in Geneva. Today, 45 diplomatic missions, 27 international organizations and 3 non-state partners based in Geneva have committed to be ‘International Geneva Gender Champions’ and more are joining every week.

A big thank you to Ambassador Hamamoto for originating and driving this initiative.

•We also increased partnerships and inclusiveness in our processes, by strengthening our engagement with civil society, academia, private sector, and other stakeholders.
For example, we organised the first-ever Informal Civil Society Forum on the Conference of Disarmament.

•We continued to work on modernizing ourselves and changing how we do business.

We went live with Umoja - and ‘survived’.

We moved forward with the Strategic Heritage Plan and we hope to get approval by the General Assembly before the end of the year for this ambitious renovation plan for our collective ‘home’ here in Geneva.

•In 2015 UNOG hosted 4 mediation processes, multiple rounds of negotiations and has strengthened its substantive and logistical support for the prevention and resolution of conflicts, in collaboration with the Department of Political Affairs and with generous help – as always – of our host Government.

•Finally, we worked throughout the year to showcase how the United Nations and its partners make a difference for every single individual on this planet, every single day, through the Perception Change Project (PCP). The work of “International Geneva” - your work - is becoming more and more recognised internationally.

On such topics as Ebola, Human Rights, Migration, Humanitarian aid, children, but also for all those ‘hidden’ areas of the UN work that make our life a better one: road safety, trade, intellectual property, telecommunications, and many others.

Let me take this opportunity to thank my colleagues across the UN family for the extraordinary work they are carrying out. We owe them a lot !

•As we work on the implementation of the three post-2015 frameworks, we need to make the synergies of ‘International Geneva’ more visible than ever.

Our continued and strengthened collaboration will be indispensable to the very important work ahead of us: to translate our strong commitment to this great new endeavour into action. It translates into an extremely busy 2016.

The real challenges and hard work are ahead of us: to achieve the global goals we have set for ourselves, we will need 2 key ingredients : high-level political commitment and a renewed global partnership.

To quote my boss - the SG: “To do better, we must do differently... We can no longer afford to think and work in silos … We need to start the new era on the right foot”.

Let me take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your support to UNOG and for contributing to the important work that we carry out as the United Nations family on “Peace, rights and well-being”.

Last but not least, my sincere thanks to our host country and the local authorities: mes plus sincères remerciements à la Ville de Genève, la République et canton de Genève et la Confédération Helvétique, sans qui notre travail et nos succès de l’année n’auraient pas été possibles. C’est un privilège de pouvoir travailler main dans la main avec un pays hôte et des autorités locales qui soutiennent le travail de l’ONU et de la communauté internationale d’une manière aussi assidue et chaleureuse.

My very best wishes for a great 2016 to you and your families, and I look forward to continue our ongoing collaboration next year !

Cheers !
Santé !