Neil Buhne, United Nations Resident Co-ordinator/Humanitarian Co-ordinator and the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme in Sri Lanka will make an address on sustainability in the global context at the launch of the first Global Compact Network Sri Lanka – CIMA Sustainability Awards.
The Awards, which will be launched at the Colombo Hilton on Thursday 13 December, are the first of their kind for the United Nations Global Compact, a UN initiative that seeks to draw together business with UN agencies, labour organisations and civil societies to support ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption.

Mr Buhne, who will attend the launch of the Awards as Chief Guest, is no stranger to Sri Lanka. He began his career with the United Nations as a Junior Professional Officer with UNDP in Colombo in 1984. Since then he has served in Sudan, Bhutan, Pakistan and Malaysia as the Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP. In Belarus and Bulgaria he served as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the UNDP Resident Representative. In Bulgaria, Mr Buhne was also the UN Global Compact Focal Point the country and was involved in promoting the ten principles of the Global Compact there.

The United Nations in Sri Lanka has a long history of partnerships since the arrival of the first UN Resident Representative in 1952. Today, the United Nations help support Sri Lanka in a range of development activities that include poverty alleviation, good governance, post tsunami reconstruction, human rights, health, education, human settlements, and environment, energy and disaster risk management. The United Nations has also extended its humanitarian assistance by supporting national efforts for relief and recovery of both people displaced by conflict and by the December 2004 tsunami.