While in New York on 27 September to deliver an aviation security briefing to the United Nations Security Council, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu met with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. António Guterres.
Secretary General Guterres greatly appreciated how unified the Security Council States had been regarding ICAO’s global activities and leadership in the field of aviation security, and how this unity so exemplified the spirit and effectiveness of the multilateralism on which the UN is founded.
Dr. Liu expressed in turn how essential multilateralism is to everything which ICAO works toward, whether in the fields of aviation security or the optimizing of the socio-economic benefits of aviation connectivity in aid of governments’ achievement of Agenda 2030. She and SG Guterres discussed how States’ ICAO compliance and level of aviation development can greatly aid their achievement of the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and ICAO’s many efforts being undertaken to optimize this healthy cycle of investment and enhanced prosperity.
Also discussed were UN gender equality objectives and the respective progress being made in ICAO and UN-wide towards the current targets and priorities established. SG Guterres was grateful for an update on ICAO’s numerous gender equality programmes and initiatives, and the secretaries general further discussed the overall efficiency and effectiveness by which UN agencies are currently delivering services to Member States, enhanced ICAO/UN cooperation in areas related to security and the environment, and recent geopolitical concerns in ICAO’s Asia Pacific (APAC) and Middle East (MID) Regions.
