Children prepare for their performance of an African dance at the UN house on UN Day

On UN Day, with support of the UN country team, United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) Prague organized the UN Open House event, targeting secondary and High School students as well as the general public. Some 120 students from four different schools, and 30 others attended the full day programme which included lectures and presentations UN Secretary General’s UN Day message, the film UN Year in Review, Seal the Deal presentation, UNHCR photo exhibit, World Health Organization (WHO) children drawings exhibit and UNICEF’s “School in a Box“ presentation and exhibit. The programme also included an African dance performed by school kids in support of children in Africa.

Various information materials about the work of the UN including the Secretary General’s UN Day message, UNIC newsletter and Seal the Deal materials in Czech were disseminated during the Open House event. Among guests visiting the UN House were members of the Diplomatic Corps, government, local authorities as well as partner NGOs.

Minister Ladislav Miko symbolically signs the Seal the Deal campaign poster at the UN house on UN day in Prague

To highlight the UN Day, United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) Prague organized a high level stamping event in support of the Seal the Deal campaign in the Czech Republic which was attended by some 50 people. The event in the UNIC Library was attended by representatives of the media, government and civil society.
 
Speakers included Minister of Environment for the Czech Republic Ladislav Miko, his First Deputy Jan Dusik, MP and former Environment Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Martin Bursik and Slovak climate scientist Milan Lapin who works closely with the IPCC. UNIC Prague’s Office in Charge was facilitating the event which started with the screening of the UN Secretary General’s UN Day video message.

After remarks from the speakers in support of the Copenhagen deal and the Seal the Deal campaign in particular, the Minister, his Deputy and MP Bursik who have been supporting the Seal the Deal campaign in the Czech Republic, symbolically stamped the Seal the Deal banner. As part of the event, UNIC Prague hung a four metre tall Seal the Deal banner on the façade of the UN House.

At the debate to commemorate the International Day of Peace held at the UNIC Library

To highlight the International Day of Peace, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Prague and the Charles University Prague jointly organized a thematic debate on Darfur. The panelists included scholars and a UN peacekeeper. The issues ranged from the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to the UN hybrid operation in Darfur. The event was attended by about 50 students, scholars, government and NGO representatives.

Other International Day of Peace activities included support of a peace conference in the city of Pilsen and a press release highlighting the WMD campaign.

Prominent Czech community members gather to discuss the effects of climate change in the Czech Republic

As part of its “Seal the Deal!” campaign to highlight the importance of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Prague organized the first of a series of roundtable discussions with representatives from business, media, academia, government, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The topic of the discussion series is climate change, in its many forms, as it applies to the Czech Republic.  In light of the Czech Republic’s EU Presidency, the first roundtable was focused on the role of the EU in the negotiation process.

Eight prominent panelists took part in a two hour debate on 16 June 2009 including the Deputy Minister of Environment, the Chief of the Climate Change Department at the Environment Ministry, the former Environment Minister (who currently serves as an adviser to the Prime Minister), an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) member, a senior journalist, a representative of the major energy producer CEZ, the head of the External Relations Department of Skoda-Auto (car making industry) and a representative of an NGO active in the international climate negotiations.
 
At the end of the roundtable, all participants agreed that UNIC Prague together with other UN agencies was well suited to facilitate such discussions and supported the idea of continuing this format in future discussions.
 
The UNIC Prague Officer-in-Charge highlighted the Secretary-General’s “Seal the Deal!” campaign in his welcome address. Organization of the debate was supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Prague.