All UN countries must tackle migration
Thursday, September 15, Vilnius – President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, to discuss migration, painful military conflicts in Ukraine, Georgia and Syria, as well as the agenda of the UN General Assembly session to be held in New York next week.
Michael Møller heads the second largest UN office. He is the highest ranking UN official to travel to Lithuania after the visit of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2013. The Geneva-based United Nations activity field covers human rights, disarmament, sustainable development, and humanitarian aid.
The President said that the increasing impact of climate change and the ongoing military conflicts were going to inflate migration flows. Therefore, the international community needed to unite its efforts when addressing these challenges.
“The challenges of migration are global. All UN member states must assume responsibility because these problems are long-term. The United Nations must understand that migration is the responsibility of the whole international community, not only of Europe. The problem will not go away if joint efforts are not made to resolve it,” the President said.
The meeting also focused on the upcoming UN General Assembly session and the need for concrete steps to implement sustainable development goals. On September 21, the President will host a high-level discussion in New York on the economic cost of violence against women. At the President’s invitation, the event will be attended by the presidents of Chile, Croatia and Malta, the President of the World Bank, WHO Director-General, OECD Secretary-General, EU Commission Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva. Gender equality is among top priority sustainable development goal.
