NEW YORK, 22 September 2017- The Secretariats of ASEAN and the United Nations, acknowledged the strong cooperation and collaboration between both organizations at their annual meeting held at the UN Headquarters yesterday.

This annual Secretariat-to-Secretariat Meeting was established in March 2011 as a formal mechanism to consolidate and strengthen ASEAN-UN relations, review projects and activities and decide on new areas of cooperation and collaboration.

New York, 21 September 2017

1. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Libya, Ghassan Salamé, hosted a meeting of the Quartet in New York on 21 September on margins of the United Nations General Assembly, following the high-level event on Libya convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 20 September 2017. The Quartet, which brings together the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), and the League of Arab States (LAS), last met in Brussels on 23 May 2017.

The EU and UN have launched a new initiative to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls - the Spotlight Initiative.

The European Union on 20 September committed 500 million Euros to a new initiative together with the United Nations focused on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls.

(New York, 19 September 2017) The Special Advisers to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide and on the Responsibility to Protect express concern at continued allegations of grave violations and abuses of human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law in the context of the on-going conflict in Yemen and voiced their support for the call made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish an impartial, international mechanism to investigate the facts and the circumstances.

DSG/SM/1086-WOM/2119

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the General Assembly side event “Rebuilding Shattered Lives and Communities: Chibok and Yezidi Girls and Women”, in New York today:

I am honoured to be with you today for this important event. I thank the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the co-sponsors, Canada, Denmark, Iraq, Nigeria and the European Union, for bringing us together to focus on the urgent challenge of rebuilding shattered lives and communities.