Lausanne, 19th June 2014 IOC President Thomas Bach on tuesday greeted a UN delegation led by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was accompanied by Michael Moller, Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and UNECE Acting Executive Secretary, and Wilfried Lemke, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace.
IOC Executive Board members Patrick Hickey (IRL), who is also President of the European Olympic Committees, and Gunilla Lindberg (SWE), also ANOC Secretary General, together with the Chair of the IOC International Relations Commission Mario Pescante (ITA), who represents the Olympic Movement, which has Observer status with the UN, were also present.
At the meetings, held in the IOC HQ in Lausanne, the two organisations reviewed cooperation since the signature of their historic agreement in New York last 28th April, which includes some important projects such as providing aid to athletes in refugee camps and those in South Sudan who hope to compete at Rio 2016, a joint scheme based on sport as a tool for peace.
IOC Honorary President Jacques Rogge, recently appointed Special Envoy for Youth and Sport, will soon travel to Jordan to meet Syrian refugees for the same purpose.
Ban Ki-Moon said how pleased he was at the way the partnership has consolidated and is providing concrete aid in the name of peace, adding that he hoped the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, Korea, his home country, could foster peace talks between north and south. He concluded saying that he was most impressed with Olympic Agenda 2020.
The two organisations are working at several projects linked to sustainable development, for which sport is a precious and effective tool, the two leaders commenting on the effectiveness of YOG, this summer in Nanjing, China. The two leaders also announced that they would soon inaugurate a new Sports for Hope centre in Haiti.
Following the meeting, the UN Secretary General and the leaders of the Olympic Movement visited the recently renovated Olympic Museum, where they were joined by IOC Honorary President Jacques Rogge, and the members of the Olympic Agenda 2020 working groups in Lausanne for a first round of meetings.