Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has stressed Egypt’s support for the role of the United Nations in facing global and regional challenges related to combating crime, drugs and terrorism, thereby contributing to the maintenance of world security and stability.
The president’s remarks came as he received on Sunday Dr Ghada Wali, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director-General of the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Presidency Spokesman Ambassador Bassam Radi said.
Dr Wali had before assuming her UN post been an Egyptian cabinet minister of social solidarity. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime is the international community’s specialised organisation for fighting against illicit drugs and transnational crime in addition to being responsible for implementing the United Nations lead programme on terrorism.
During the meeting, Dr Wali expressed her sincere appreciation to the president for the continuous support to the role of the organisation, noting that Egypt’s backing to that role would enhance the organisation’s efforts during the coming period to maximising the capabilities of the international community to address the threats posed by cross-border organised crime.
This comes in addition to efforts aimed at addressing corruption and its negative impact on communities, crime prevention efforts and building effective criminal justice systems.
In this context, Dr Wali outlined to President Sisi the key areas on the organisation’s agenda of action, especially the follow-up to the results of the Sharm el-Sheikh Declaration issued by the United Nations Global Conference against Corruption, which Egypt hosted in Sharm el-Sheikh in December 2021, with the participation of more than 2,000 representatives of governments, regional and international organisations, civil society, academia and the private sector.
The UN official thanked the Egyptian government for the fruitful co-operation with the UN to organise that global conference in light of the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, highlighting that the conference represented a global milestone for improving international co-operation against corruption and helping the world recover from the pandemic.
Wali also reviewed the axes of international co-operation under the umbrella of the United Nations in the fields of combating crime, drugs and terrorism in light of the recent regional developments in Afghanistan, especially with regard to arms smuggling, drug trafficking, and the aggravation of the two phenomena of terrorism and refugees.
In her presentation, Dr Wali also referred to the ongoing preparations, in co-operation with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, to organise an international conference in Egypt during 2022 on combating antiquities smuggling as one of the sources of financing terrorism and organised crime.
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