UN Reform Takes Root

NEW UN INSTRUMENT ENABLES SECRETARY-GENERAL TO FUND PRIORITY INITIATIVES FOR DEMOCRACY WORLDWIDE

18 July 2006, KYIV. The Advisory Board of the new UN Democracy Fund holds its second meeting today in New York. After reviewing pre-selected 200 proposals, the recommendations will be made to the Secretary-General on projects to be funded.

In just one month, the Fund received over 1,300 applications from 130 countries including more then 20 projects from Ukraine addressing such crucial issues as human rights protection, information society development, public control and authorities accountability enhancement, access to justice and information improvement.

Following approval from the Secretary-General, the selected proposals will be announced in early August.

The Democracy Fund was established by the Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2005. The first session of the Fund’s Advisory Board, held in March 2006, approved Fund’s governance structure and its programme guidelines. As of end of June 2006, the Fund had received close to USD 50 million in contributions and pledged form Member States.

Through the Democracy Fund, the UN will be promoting and supporting democracy in a wide variety of social, economic, historical and cultural contexts.

“This is UN reform in action – moving fast-forward to speed up implementation of a new instrument to nourish democracy across the world. Clearly, when UN member states achieve agreement on key reforms, changes happen. The Democracy Fund will ensure its funds are well-spent on tangible results. Ukraine needs to be part of this, given its emerging role in the community of democracies, and its new aspirations to become a donor country”, said Francis M. O’Donnell, UN Resident Coordinator to Ukraine.

The next round of project applications is expected in early 2007.

The Fact Sheet on United Nations Democracy Fund is available here .

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For further information, please contact, Ms. Veronika Vashchenko, Communication Officer at e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , tel: (+38 044) 453-9363, 254-0035