UNU Update: New headquarters for INWEH

	UNU Update
	The newsletter of United Nations University and its network of research and training centres and programmes
	HOME \| ARCHIVES \| E-MAIL	Issue 18: July-August 2002

UN flag raised to inaugurate
INWEH's new headquaters

UNU Vice Rector Ramesh Thakur (right) presents the UN flag to the Mayor of
Hamilton, Bob Wade (centre), and McMaster University president Peter George

The flag of the United Nations was raised in front of the Old Courthouse Building in the Canadian city of Hamilton June 22 during a ceremony to inaugurate the new headquarters of the UN University International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU/INWEH).

UNU Vice Rector Ramesh Thakur presented the flag to Hamilton Mayor Bob Wade and McMaster University President Peter George on behalf of the UN. McMaster is providing accommodation to INWEH in the Old Courthouse Building.

The ceremony took place at the start of a two-day meeting of UNU/INWEH’s International Advisory Committee. IAC Vice-Chair Elizabeth Dowdeswell, former Executive Director of the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme, together with fellow IAC members from Brazil, India, Uganda and Saudi Arabia, also took part in the ceremonies.

INWEH's arrival in Hamilton is a recognition of the broad range of scientific expertise available in and near the city, said INWEH director Ralph Daley. Hamilton sits in the middle of some of the most concentrated water expertise found anywhere in the world, he said.

"Water is now recognized as being one of the most critical issues the world faces, if not the most critical issue," Thakur said. "The work [of INWEH] is valuable and important and very widely appreciated around the world."

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