Bonn, 24 October 2011 - The CMS Secretariat joined 18 UN Bonn-based agencies and several other international organizations in celebrating the annual UN Day in Bonn this weekend.
UN Day is celebrated globally to highlight the aims and achievements of the United Nations. The day marks the anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter on 24 October 1945 and has been observed annually in Bonn in 1996 when several United Nations organizations moved to the city, joining the CMS Secretariat which has been there since being set up in 1984.

With this year’s theme “8:0 for development – If not me who else?” the UN Day focused on the personal engagement of all of us to make this a better world and to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, which include stopping extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring environmental sustainability.

Thousands of people attended this year’s festivities in the city centre of Bonn, which took place on Bonn's Market Square. Accompanied by a colourful variety of entertainment, including music and dance performances from around the world, visitors had the chance to find out more about the different activities and goals of the various UN Bonn organizations and take away posters, stickers and other information material. Among the more prominent visitors to the CMS stand at this year’s UN Day were Ms. Flavia Pansieri, Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers and current Head of the UN Agencies in Germany and also the Lord Mayor of Bonn, Mr. Jürgen Nimptsch.

The CMS Secretariat shared an exhibition tent with the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), EUROBATS, ASCOBANS and several other UN Bonn organizations, programmes and offices, for instance, with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or and the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV).