Page 236 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

working tirelessly at ensuring that the Organization remains the viable
instrument its founders meant it to be.

Within the UN, Geneva occupies a special place not only as the birthplace
of multilateral diplomacy, but also as a major conference and operational
centre of UN activities.

In the period of the global changes which followed the end of the Cold
War, Geneva has acquired a new dimension. With its five specialized agencies,
two UN High Commissioners, a multitude of programmes and such bodies as
the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Organization for
Migration (IOM) and the CD, it is becoming a global centre for expertise and
knowledge, a kind of international agency of know-how, which provides rec-
ommendations to its Member States on how to adopt to the new challenges.

It is noteworthy that during 1995, UNOG has been visited by 14 Heads of
States, 12 Prime Ministers, 43 Foreign Ministers and 47 other Ministers - and
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, himself, visited Geneva seven times.
In the past three years, number of Member States' missions accredited to
UNOG has grown by ten, to the total 144. An additional two Member States
have expressed their intention and contacted HQ in New York to open
missions here in Geneva in the course of 1996.

As part of the overall reform of the global UN Secretariat, in our quest for
improvements, we at UNOG have been engaged for the last two years in a
process of reforms and streamlining which has led to sizeable economies, more
particularly in the context of the reduction of documentation. The reform has
brought effective decentralization, which is key to any meaningful reform
process of the UN system, and a greater delegation of authority to UNOG, thus
allowing for greater flexibility in implementation.

The reform process has also brought consolidation in a number of areas:

• in human rights, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination

against Women, has expressed the wish to meet in Geneva, which
would result in the concentration in Geneva of all United Nations
human right activities;
• in disarmament. in addition to the CD, the United Nations Institute
for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and fellowship programmes,
Geneva will henceforth host all review conferences;

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