Activities of Secretary-General in Washington, D.C., 19-20 April

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Madam Ban Soon-taek arrived in Washington, D.C., on the evening of Thursday, 19 April.

He began the day Friday at the World Bank with a meeting with its President, Robert Zoellick.  He then attended a meeting on “Rio+20” with the world's leading finance ministers participating in the World Bank spring meeting.

He then delivered the keynote address at an event entitled “Delivering Sustainable Energy for All:  Opportunities at Rio+20” — hosted by the Centre for Global Development and Climate Advisers.  Saying that the support of the leading ministers of finance is crucial to the transformation to a green economy, the Secretary-General emphasized the need to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to agree on a concrete set of outcomes that will create an inclusive green economy for this and future generations.  (See Press Release SG/SM/14242)

The Secretary-General had a private working luncheon with United States and Danish Government officials, as well as advocates of sustainable energy, before leaving Washington, D.C., for New York on Friday afternoon.