Melbourne Sets Stage For UN DPI/NGO Conference

Melbourne, Australia Sets Stage For UN DPI/NGO Conference 30 August With Hearty Welcome To More Than 2,000 Participants, Aiming To ‘Make Health Global’

(Received from a United Nations Information Officer.)

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 29 August -- The United Nations Department of Public Information is taking the annual DPI/NGO Conference on the road for the third successive year, this time, to discuss global health as it relates to the Millennium Development Goals, and this time, to attract greater participation of civil society from the Asia-Pacific region.

The sixty-third annual DPI/NGO Conference, which officially begins on Monday, 30 August, has attracted more than 2,200 registrants from up to 70 countries, who have begun to arrive in Melbourne. Positioned on the estuary of the Yarra River, the city is a centre for the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, sport and tourism. The Conference, based in a country deeply committed to the core issue on the agenda, calls to action an ever growing number of civil society organizations in the region and beyond to take up the mantle.

Indeed, the effort to give priority to associating non-governmental organizations based in the region that hosts the annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference and increase geographic diversity among those associations affiliated with the Department bore fruit when an unprecedented number from the Asia-Pacific region joined the Department on 30 June. In all, 41 such associations from the Asia-Pacific region were associated this year, including 32 from Australia, one from Fiji, five from the Philippines, and three from the Pacific Islands.

The new United Nations policy to offer association to non-governmental organizations in the region where the Conference is being held also presents a chance for “solidifying the trend of increasing geographic diversity and greater networking opportunities for NGOs affiliated with the Department of Public Information”, says United Nations Chief of NGO Relations Maria-Luisa Chavez.

Holding the Conference away from United Nations Headquarters “offers a unique opportunity to intensify and strengthen our partnerships with the NGOs and civil society different regions of the world, in this case, the Asia/Pacific region”, she said. Ms. Chavez noted that this year the Conference has been organized against a backdrop of challenges posed by a 15-hour time difference, geographical distance and even the elections in Australia. Despite this, she declared the list of registrants “impressive”.

“This Conference will be different,” insisted Kiyo Akasaka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, “because it is the first time that a UN Conference of this size has been hosted in Australia. We are very excited to meet in this part of the world and to have the strong participation of NGOs from this country”.

Setting the stage for the Monday’s opening of the Conference, which itself promises to be one of the most colourful and multicultural in the history of the Conference, will be a series of public events in Melbourne, from 27 August to 5 September, under the banner “Making Health Global”. The programme is directed by Professor Philip Batterham, Convenor of the Australian NGO Focal Group who says, “Melburnians already play a role in global health. We give, we volunteer and our medical researchers are tackling the big killers like HIV, malaria, diarrhoea and dirty water.”

To name a few, World Vision Australia, the Australian Football League and Melbourne Football Club hosted an event on Sunday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to mark the end of the football season before the finals in a game that saw Melbourne versus North Melbourne. The game was dedicated to raising awareness around the issue of child health. There was a media call at 2:30 p.m., which featured statements and a question-and-answer period with the press and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Public Information and Communications, Kiyo Akasaka, Tim Costello, the Chief Executive Officer of World Vision, Jim Stynes, President of the Melbourne Football Club, and Glenn Archer, former North Melbourne champion.

Preceding the game was a service at the main cathedral in Melbourne – Saint Paul’s Cathedral -- with the World Vision Freedom Choir. A Sunday evening free concert at 8:30 p.m., entitled “In Melbourne: We Are All Connected”, provided a multicultural welcome to Melbourne, bringing together some 200 performers including Asian and African musicians, Bollywood dancers, a 100-strong voice Samoan choir and Australia’s only sand animation artist.

ENDS

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