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United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon visits Iceland

10 October 2016

 Director of UNU-GESTThe focus of the closed meeting was for the UNU-GEST together with its sister UNU Iceland-based institutes – the Geothermal,Fisheries and Land Restoration Training Programmes – to introduce to the Secretary General their work on climate change. For the occasion, UNU-GEST highlighted its commitment to gender and environmental issues, and welcomed the chance to introduce two final assignments of this year´s fellows´ to Mr. Ki-moon. Both project proposals aimed at gender aspects of climate change at the local level in Palestine and Malawi.

From the start, the UNU-GEST has placed special emphasis on gender and climate change as a pressing global issue. Women commonly face higher risks and greater burdens from the impact of climate change in situations of poverty, and the majority of the world’s poor are women. Further, women play a key role in climate change adaptation and mitigation.

To underscore this, UNU-GEST has organised short courses on gender and climate change and more specifically on gender, climate change and fisheries. UNU-GEST fellows, who spend a semester in Iceland as a part of their post-graduate diploma studies, work on a final project during their stay. Some fellows write academic thesis but most of them write project proposals that can be implemented once they return to their home countries. The projects are diverse in content but all aim at bringing about fundamental societal changes.

Staff with Ban Ki-moon

So far, 68 fellows – 25 men and 43 women – have graduated from the post-graduate diploma programme since its inception in 2009, and the cohorts are larger every year: next year UNU-GEST will welcome 19 fellows from eleven countries.

Mr. Ban Ki-moon is the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations and will continue to serve until 31 December 2016.  This is his second visit to Iceland during his tenure. The primary issues promoted during his term as a Secretary-General of the United Nations have been sustainable development and the empowerment of women.

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