teleSUR – The 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will Tuesday convene virtually for the first time in history due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Each UN member state, observer state, and organizations such as the European Union (EU) will submit a pre-recorded video for the debate.
The audiovisual material will be broadcasted both in the Assembly hall and digitally during the high-level meetings, at the end of this month.
The session will be chaired by Turkish diplomat Volkan Bozkir, who will spend one year as the head of the largest UN body. The diplomat was elected from the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) and follows Nigeria’s Tijjani Muhammad-Bande.
“The pandemic is testing our institutions like never before: we must take effective action at the global level to overcome this virus, and the havoc it is wreaking on our economies and societies,” he stressed.
Bozkir, who was Turkey’s former chief negotiator for accession to the European Union, said that one of the key issues in his agenda is the protection of vulnerable communities.
“Global challenges and crises take the worst toll on the most vulnerable persons and countries. People in need or under oppression should feel that their concerns are being heard in the UN’s most democratic body,” the chair of the 75th session said.
