Top UN official arrives today for Entebbe Centre meet
Expected. Mr Atul Khare, the UN Under-Secretary for Field Support.
What you need to know:
Last Thursday, the United Nations (UN) member states rejected the proposal by Secretary General Antonio Guterres to relocate key functions at the Regional Service Centre Entebbe to Nairobi.
KAMPALA. The United Nations Under-Secretary for Field Support, Mr Atul Khare, is expected to arrive in Uganda today to meet President Museveni and senior government officials over the aborted plan to relocate the UN Regional Service Center in Entebbe to Kenya.
The deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary, Mr Farhan Haq, said Mr Khare will also meet the workers at the base.
“The Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, Atul Khare, will visit Uganda from 19 to 21 July. Mr. Khare is expected to meet with President Yoweri Museveni and senior officials of the Government of Uganda,” he said at a press conference at the UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
“He will also visit and meet with the leadership and personnel of the UN Regional Service Centre in Entebbe,” Mr Haq added.
Request rejected
Last Thursday, the United Nations (UN) member states rejected the proposal by Secretary General Antonio Guterres to relocate key functions at the Regional Service Centre Entebbe to Nairobi.
The centre provides a wide range of administrative, logistics and information and communications technology services to 13 missions in Africa, representing more than 63 per cent of all UN peacekeeping and special political missions worldwide.
On May 1, the UN secretary general recommended that the UN administrative functions be merged in three locations of Nairobi, Budapest and Mexico City. But Uganda later protested the plan to move the base to Kenya. Ugandan diplomats have been negotiating to have the facility remain at Entebbe until Thursday when the UN member states refused Mr Gutteres’ proposal to have the centre moved.
