Ban Ki-moon in Sri Lanka next week

By Easwaran Rutnam

Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will arrive in Sri Lanka next week to witness the signing of an agreement between the Global Green Growth Initiative (GGGI) and the Ministry of Environment, President’s Senior Adviser on Climate Change Ruwan Wijewardene told Daily Mirror.

Wijewardene said that Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to arrive in Sri Lanka on  February 06 as the head of GGGI.

“Ban Ki-moon is arriving to witness the signing of the host country agreement between Global Green Growth Initiative and the Ministry of Environment. President Ranil Wickremesinghe will witness on behalf of the Government. Ban Ki-moon was invited by the President. Both the Foreign Minister and I sent invitations to him on behalf of the President,” Wijewardene told Daily Mirror.

GGGI was established as an international intergovernmental organization in 2012 at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. 

Its vision is a low-carbon, resilient world of strong, inclusive, and sustainable growth and its mission to support Members in the transformation of their economies into a green growth economic model.

GGGI had welcomed Sri Lanka as its thirtieth Member in January 2019, committing to support the country as it asserts its commitment to achieving its sustainable development and NDC goals.

As Sri Lanka’s delivery partner for the 3-year GCF-National Adaptation Planning (NAP) Readiness Support Programme, GGGI will support Sri Lanka’s NDC on adaptation by further strengthening its adaptation planning process and capacity to implement NAP.  It also aims to enhance the country’s access to climate finance for the implementation of its national adaptation plan. 

Working towards six sub-outcomes through 20 key outputs, the project’s target impact is a built resilience of the most vulnerable sectors and communities in Sri Lanka to adverse effects of Climate Change through Sri Lanka’s strengthened capacity to implement National Adaptation Planning.  

• Will witness signing of agreement between Global Green Growth Initiative and Ministry of Environment