GFDD Meets with UNESCO Director and UN Ambassadors for Small Island Developing States

GFDD conducted official visits to UN missions in May to meet with heads of delegations and discuss future opportunities for collaboration.

Yamile Eusebio, GFDD’s Acting Co-Executive Director, and Marc Jourdan, GFDD’s UN Programs & Outreach Manager met with Ambassador Uludong of the Permanent Mission of Palau to the United Nations, Ambassador Odo Tevi of Vanuatu, Ambassador Webson of Antigua and Barbuda and Ambassador Sareer of
the Maldives over the course of the last few weeks.

During the meetings, the GFDD representatives and the diplomats discussed the possibility of collaborating during side events at upcoming UN conferences including the UN Ocean Conference (June 5-9, 2017) and the 10th session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (13 to 15 June 2017).

Given that all of these countries, including the Dominican
Republic, are Small Island Developing States that share similar vulnerabilities to climate change, the representatives also discussed the recent negotiations that took place in Germany as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the possibility of further collaborating during thematic discussions on the topic of climate change and public health. This topic has become particularly over the last few years given the increasing level of outbreaks of tropical diseases and their
noted correlation to climate change.

As an accredited observer NGO of the UNFCCC, GFDD continues to monitor closely the negotiation meetings of the UNFCCC and will continue to engage with UN Member States via official meetings and events, and in particular with the Group of 77, of which the Dominican Republic is a member.

Earlier during the month, GFDD’s Marc Jourdan also met with the Director of UNESCO’s New York
Liaison Office, Marie-Paule Roudil, and Lily Gray, UNESCO’s specialist on education matters. Jourdan discussed with them UNESCO’s newly adopted Education 2030 Framework for Action and the support for implementation of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal
4 on education. The framework aims to mobilize all stakeholders around the ambitious education goal and targets, and proposes ways of implementing, coordinating, financing and reviewing the 2030 education agenda – globally, regionally and nationally – to guarantee equal educational opportunity for all.  GFDD and UNESCO will seek to collaborate going forward both in the Dominican Republic and the USA to support the organizations’ mutual objective to enhance
education for sustainable development.

Related links:
https://oceanconference.un.org
https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/conference-of-states-parties-to-the-convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-2/cosp10.html
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/cop-23-bonn/
http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/
http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/incheon-framework-for-action-en.pdf