UN Foundation

Dhaka hosts board meeting

Dhaka is set to host the meeting of the Board of Directors of the United Nations (UN) Foundation on December 11 and 12.

The UN Foundation was created in 1998 with the historic $ 1 billion gift by the American entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner to support the UN causes and activities.

Chairman of the UN Foundation and founder of the TV channel CNN, Robert E Turner (Ted Turner) and President of the foundation, Timothy E Wirth are coming to Bangladesh on this occasion along with other directors of the foundation's board who are also world renowned dignitaries.

The big names include Director-General Emeritus of World Health Organization (WHO), Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway), Chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd., N R Narayana Murthy (India), Judge of the International Court of Justice, Hisashi Owada (Japan), Director of the Centre for History and Economic, King's College, University of Cambridge, Emma Rothschild (UK), Chair of Communidade Solidaria, Brazil's anti-poverty organization, Ruth Cardoso (Brazil), Director of Investment and Technology Promotion at the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Liang Dan (China), Chair of Foundation for Community Development, Graca Machel (Mozambique), Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, Nafis Sadik (Pakistan), Chairman of Good Works International, Andrew Young (USA) and founder of Grameen Bank, Prof Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh).

The UN Foundation holds three board meetings in a year. At least one meeting is held in a country other than USA. Previous board meetings were held in Brazil, Mozambique, South Africa and the UK and the next one will be held in Japan in 2006.

The activities during their visit will include; board meeting, visit to Grameen Bank, river cruise and discussions with the representatives of the government, civil society, NGOs and UN bodies in Bangladesh.
They will also meet the members of the press at Hotel Sonargaon at 2:00pm on December 12.

The UN Foundation is a public charity, engaged in four primary areas of work in pursuit of its mission: grant making, strengthening UN institutions, conducting outreach efforts for educating public about UN's role and raising new funds to support UN programs.

The UN Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world's most pressing problems and also works to broaden support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach.