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INTERNATIONAL
Interview with

Mr. Mohamed

All Alhakim

Under-Secretary- General and Executive Secretary of the
Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)

IqJiiJI
ESCWA

It is not often you hear about ES- Q: What is the reason that you are has going for itself is the growing
CWA, and this is something the here in Geneva today? number of young people, in addition
newly appointed Executive Direc- First, I am the Executive Secretary of to attention to women and gender is-
tor and Under-Secretary-General, the ESCWA, and ESCWA has 18 Arab sues. Therefore, we are working on
Mr Mohamed Ali Alhakim, is about countries as member states, so there these issues. We are also working on
to change. are always issues and meetings here the productivity of social and eco-
in Geneva. The purpose of my coming nomic development. It is also impor-
Mr Under-Secretary-General is a to Geneva is to attend the high-level tant for us. Prevention is a priority
highly articulate person, friendly segment of the International Telecom- for the Secretary-General, so, this is
and very dedicated to bringing munication Union, and to present the another issue we are working too.
about change in his new post. We view of ESCWA and the Arab region
had a chance to meet with him in to this audience. In addition, I also Q: What exactly are you doing for
Geneva, when, despite his busy meet with other heads of agencies. prevention?
schedule, he kindly accepted to We are doing a lot of capacity building
receive us and to satisfy our curi- Q: How is the link between ESCWA - there are many post-conflict issues
osity. Before we leave the floor to and the other UN agencies? that we are trying to resolve. We are
Mr Alhakim, let us briefly mention Actually, so far, so good. With some trying to figure out how the socio-eco-
that he was previously the Perma- of them, we have direct cooperation nomic issues affect the development
nent Representative and Ambassa- such as with TOM, UNCTAD, WIPO of countries and to make sure we have
dor of Iraq to the United Nations, and ITU, where we have a very close a plan for the next 10 to 15 years for
both in New York and in Geneva; partnership. In addition, these have the young men and women coming
Ambassador and Director of Arab, regional offices in our areas, which is out of school. There are generations
European, International Organi- an advantage for our collaboration. of young people who have graduated
sations and Policy Planning at the We collaborated with UNDP and from colleges with good degrees, but
Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, other resident country coordinators they do not have jobs, so, unemploy-
Baghdad; Iraq Minister of Commu- to deliver the 2030 agenda. ment is a big issue.
nications; Member of Iraq National
Assembly and Foreign Relations Q: You are based in a troubled region. Q: You also have other issues I pre-
Sub-Committee; and Senior Social How does this affect your work? sume. What about the water and the
and Economic Adviser to the Vice It is, actually, quite troubled, a region water management issues?
President of Iraq. So now, we leave full of conflict, and that is where the There are national and transnational
the floor to Mr Alhakim. challenge is. What the region really issues. Water, climate change, energy,

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMAT - DIVA
5