INAUGURATION OF THE H-BUILDING AT UN GENEVA 01NOV2021

Welcome, Welcome to the ceremony of inauguration of Building Age Beyond venue Beyond venue Atus Atut.

After three years of constructions, the state-of-the-art building fully integrated in the beautiful Ariana Park welcomed the first UN staff earlier this summer as the renovation of the historic Paladinacion got underway.

This beautiful building that we are inaugurating today has been designed to be sustainable, cost saving and highly efficient workspace, and we will hear more about this from our speakers.

So without further ado, I will now start this ceremony by giving the floor to the Director General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Mrs Tatiana Bolovaya.

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You have the floor.

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Dear colleagues, dear friends, four years ago, in October 2017, construction began on this new building, which we inaugurate today.

Four years later, and despite some challenges, in particular a global pandemic, while celebrating an important milestone of the SHP project and its journey towards supporting your Geneva's Commission of Multilateral Diplomacy, the past year and a half brought many challenges and changes, forcing us to learn how to do things differently, innovative and find new ways of working.

We, the international family in Geneva, have come a long way since then.

We have embraced changed, demonstrated great solidarity and been willing to learn while ensuring business continuity and delivery of our mandates.

The construction of this new building was also marked by some challenges relating to COVID-19 pandemic, in particular the temporary, temporary closure of the work site.

I am proud of the hard work undertaken by the teams here at UN Geneva to ensure the handover or the building.

I wish to take the opportunity to thank all the members of our teams for the great work they've done and are still doing for the next stage of the project.

Today's inauguration of this new building is a major and exciting step forward.

The Paladinacion is being transformed into a modern workplace and conferencing facility that meets today's standards for safety and accessibility and corresponds to the new ways of working.

With its modern and sustainable design, the new building can accommodate up to 1500 staff from different entities.

Such proximity further allows the consolidation of the different UN Secretariat offices within our premises.

For example, our colleagues from OHCRHR who are currently accommodated in two different locations will move to the H building at a later stage, therefore bringing significant operational efficiencies and reducing the overall cost of our operations.

As you may know, my team and I along with many other colleagues have already moved into this new building and some of you have already visited us.

And I look forward to working with you from this new office until the renovation of our historical parlay is over.

I also wish to warmly invite all of you to participate in the easy in the visit of the building offered after this ceremony.

Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends, yesterday the COP 26 opened in Glasgow.

In the next coming days, world leaders will put forward **** level commitments towards climate action.

Efforts from everyone, everywhere, including at the local level, are crucial to address the ****** of climate change.

For us here in Geneva, sustainability is at the heart of our gender and is being factored into everything we do.

It is therefore no surprise that sustainability has also been given the utmost consideration in the SHP project.

Designed as a healthy, highly efficient and cost saving office space, the building is fully aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

It represents the commitment of the United Nations Office of Geneva to a greener and more collaborative future.

Already one of the landmarks of International Geneva, Building Edge is an important investment for the future of the United Nations family in the city.

A 21st century building for a 21st century United Nations.

I look very much forward to hearing your impressions after your visit.

Once again, thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Director General, for this inspiring words indeed.

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Monsieur Inertia Cassis this President you can say federal a chef du department Federal de zafere tranger de la Swiss pulsere Marc.

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Oops, Monsieur le this President, you can say Federal.

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Madame de Monsieur, first of all, I would like to thank you very much, Missus Director General, for your kind invitation.

It is an honour for my colleague, Missus Fontaine and for myself to be part of this celebration today.

I would also like to seize the this opportunity to convey to you all, ladies and gentlemen, the warmest and the friendliest greetings of the Geneva Government.

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Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, international Geneva has also suffered from the COVID crisis but while these the conference activities were reduced on the spot international Geneva reinvented itself innovative and found solution.

To move forward.

During these tough times, very tough times indeed, the United Nations in Geneva took a real leadership to show the way.

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Geneva is committed to be the capital of peace and international law, the capital of human rights and sustainable development goals.

Geneva is committed to be a place of dialogue between States and between peoples.

The inauguration and the unveiling of the this H building today is another sign of this commitment.

It reminds our strong cooperation and multilateralism are anchored here in Geneva.

We should attempt to bring nature, houses and human beings together in a higher unity.

These words are not mine, ladies and gentlemen.

They are from one of the most famous architects of all times, Ludwig Mies van de Roy, who spent his life between Europe and the US in the beginning the first half of the 20th century.

Obviously, I will not speak of on his behalf about architecture, but standing here as a human being, I can feel these words resonating.

I hope you too thank you very much for your attention.

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Excellence, Madame Zelizio in his natural manners.

You know, tradition, the tolerance, the compassion.

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The group.

The Vance Person.

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Hello, Commitment for the United Nations office in Geneva.

21st Century Building for adventure.

World in progress to.

Hello, the exhibition of the stuff at work.