The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS)
EIB-UN Group Master Agreement celebration gathering
Remarks by Jorge Moreira da Silva, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNOPS Executive Director, at the EIB-UN Group Master Agreement celebration gathering.
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Excellencies, colleagues,
It is a pleasure to be here to celebrate this agreement, which will help so many of us work better together to deliver on the SDGs.
At UNOPS, we are delighted to be a signatory. This agreement compliments the partnership that we already enjoy with the EIB, which has allowed us to work together to address sustainable development challenges, from climate change to crisis response, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This partnership has already delivered amazing results in the Western Balkans, where we are helping to reconstruct three regional health centers in Serbia, supporting national goals to ensure quality healthcare. This work has contributed to efforts to reform the tertiary healthcare system in Serbia and enable improved immediate care for life-threatened, injured and emergency patients.
And in the face of conflict in Europe, we share EIB’s commitment to helping build a sustainable future for Ukraine. Over the past 18 months, UNOPS has worked hard to provide crucial assistance with a focus on emergency response, early recovery and reconstruction, in close collaboration with the Ukrainian authorities, the UN, the EU and many other partners.
But UNOPS’ work with EIB extends beyond Europe.
In Nigeria, for example, support from the EIB allows us to help tackle erosion and land degradation. The EIB contributions in that country are also helping us improve rural access and agricultural marketing, in partnership with the government and others, and with the aim of reducing rural poverty and improving welfare.
But we can do more together - drawing on UNOPS implementation role - to address our biggest global challenges, from health to energy to climate. We commend and share EIB’s commitment to innovation and to harnessing digital technologies for sustainable development.
At UNOPS - as part of the UN family - we look forward to strengthening this partnership, so that together we can accelerate progress towards the SDGs and ensure we deliver real impact on the ground.
