FM attends UN Economic and Social Council meeting

FM attends UN Economic and Social Council meeting

The Serbian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Dačić would inform the members of the council about the extent of the damage caused by the May flooding in Serbia and also invite them to take part in the donor conference in Brussels on July 16.

"Serbia's participation at the ECOSOC meeting is an extraordinary opportunity to inform the international community at the UN headquarters about the scale of the damage caused by the floods in Serbia and to invite the UN members to take an active part in the donor conference in Brussels," the release said.

The meeting of the ECOSOC, the most important UN body when it comes to economic, social and environmental protection and sustainable development, will also include two ministerial meetings, one a political forum on sustainable development and the other the Annual Ministerial Review.

Serbia was elected a member of ECOSOC in 2013 for the three-year period from 2014 to 2016 with a possible re-election, noted the MFA.

Addressing the Economic and Social Council Dačić urged the members of the organization to show up at the July 16 international donor conference in Brussels, which would hear a report on the assessments of the damage left in the wake of the disastrous floods in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in mid-May, Beta reported.

He said the success of the donor conference was very important to Serbia and called on UN members to come and take part, and voiced gratitude to the U.N. and its member states for their swift response in sending humanitarian aid and dispatching damage assessment teams, the ministry said in a statement.

Reflecting on the achievement of Millennium Declaration goals, Dačić said Serbia had reached the fundamental goal and halved the number of people living in poverty by 2008.

Infant, child and mother mortality rates are down, while the mandatory education graduation rates remained high. Unfortunately, the situation worsened during the global financial crisis. Unemployment and destitution rates are growing, the Serbian minister said.

Dačić also stated that Serbia, as a new member of the European Economic and Social Committee, wanted to provide its full contribution to the work of that body.