A founding member of the United Nations, Belarus has always been instrumental in the UN coming up with critical initiatives in different areas.

At the UN, we concentrate our efforts on a few global issues that are critical for both Belarus and international community.

A stalwart supporter of interfaith and intercultural dialogue, Belarus recently suggested to hold a thematic debate at the UN General Assembly to encourage thorough discussions on this all-important matter, with major religious leaders having their say.

With a massively supportive feedback, this idea turned reflected in a GA resolution on interreligious and intercultural dialogue and co-operation for peace. The debate has thus been lined up to be held in the near future. 

We continue our efforts to build a Global Partnership against Trafficking in Human Beings in the 21 Century – an idea we announced back in 2005, with now a green light for holding intergovernmental consultations on a UN plan of action against human trafficking.

The process of consultations got a go-ahead following two resolutions on how to improve the international anti-trafficking coordination that the General Assembly adopted twice by consensus on our initiative. We are proud to have a considerable number of co-sponsors of this resolution across all regions, now including heavyweights China and India.

Moreover, Belarus has initiated a ‘group of friends’ within the UN to facilitate the talks on the UN plan of action and help make them a true success.

Energy agenda continues to stay central to our work at the UN, with a focus on forging an effective global mechanism on ensuring free access to cutting-edge technologies in new and renewable source of energy for developing nations and countries with economies in transition.

In 2009, to foster a root-and-branch discussion on how to bring about this vital goal, we initiated a General Assembly thematic debate on global energy co-operation providing a platform for Member States to address such important issues as to how to secure energy efficiency of national economies and larger usage of new and renewable sources of energy.

Our joint efforts with the EU during talks on a specific GA resolution on energy matters ended up in a recommendation for Member States to elaborate strategies of encouraging price reduction for energy generated by new and renewable sources.

Recently we came up with a new initiative of encouraging closer co-operation with and among middle-income countries as today stability of global economy is ever dependant on how healthy the economies of this very group of nations are.

Belarus together with other partners jump-started a separate negotiating process in the UN to find solutions for a serious question of how to leverage the UN system to help the middle-income countries deliver their social and economic goals to ensure sustainable development across the globe.

As a result, the 64^th session of the General Assembly, which lasts across 2009 and 2010, saw the first ever substantive resolution on this critical issue.

Belarus keeps on to be at the vanguard of the UN work on Chernobyl. We largely contributed to a meeting of the Interagency working group on Chernobyl in 2009 held as a video conference with the UNDP country offices in Kiev, Minsk and Moscow, as well as with different UN agencies in Vienna, Geneva, London and Paris.