2015•10•26     Barcelona, Spain

UNU-GCM celebrated the 70th anniversary of the United Nations with an event at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site on 23 October 2015 . The event was organised in collaboration with the four UN offices operating at the site: United Nations University Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility (UNU-GCM), WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Strengthening (WHO/Europe), UN-HABITAT’s City Resilience Profiling Programme (UN-HABITAT/CRPP) and GWOPA Secretariat Global Water Operators Partnerships Alliance (UN-HABITAT/GWOPA).

Josep M. Forcada, President of the Very Illustrious Board of Trustees of the Sant Pau Modernist Site, opened the event and welcomed the attendees. Then, the Preamble of the UN Charter was read by Anna Folch, President of UNICEF –Catalunya Committee,  Josep Casajuana, Vice-president of UNHCR-Catalan Committee, and Eduard Sagarra, ANUE President, in English, Spanish and Catalan, respectively.

Each of the four Directors of the UN offices at Sant Pau then offered a speech to celebrate the anniversary and discuss the work of their office: Prof. Dr. Parvati Nair, Director UNU-GCM, Dr. Tamas Evetovits, Director WHO Office in Barcelona, Mr. Dan Lewis, Director UN-Habitat/CRPP, and Dr. Faraj El-Awar, Director UN-Habitat/GWOPA.

To close the event, three government representatives offered some words: Mr. Roger Albinyana, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and to the EU, Generalitat de Catalunya, Mr. Gerardo Pisarello, First Deputy Mayor at Barcelona City Council and Mr. Marcelino Cabanas, Ambassador at Large for Preventive Diplomacy and Nominations.

This portion of the event was followed by a concert of world music by soprano Patricia Caicedo, pianist Nikos Stavlas and percussionist Azis Khodari.

The Sant Pau Art Nouveau site was then illuminated in UN blue with a projection of the UN logo.

For more details, here are the Event Programme and the Concert Programme.

All photos Copyright: ROBERT RAMOS