Multilateralism - Jean-Yves Le Drian’s participation in the ministerial meeting of the Alliance for Multilateralism (video conference, 24 Feb. 2021)

Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, co-chaired, together with his German counterpart, Heiko Maas, a ministerial meeting of the Alliance for Multilateralism via video conference yesterday.

Held on the occasion of the opening session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, this video conference brought together ministers from 45 countries, the High Representative of the European Union, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UNESCO Director-General, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Special Envoy to the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) and the Acting Director-General of the World Trade Organization, as well as civil society representatives.

The members of the Alliance for Multilateralism reaffirmed their commitment to protecting human rights and the institutions that defend them, particularly in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Minister reaffirmed the priorities he had highlighted at the Human Rights Council during the morning. He announced that the Partnership on Information and Democracy would hold its first summit, with support from Reporters sans Frontières, on the sidelines of the high-level segment of the UN General Assembly this coming September.

He stressed the importance of universal access to vaccines, with the support of the ACT-A initiative, and called for the adoption of initial reforms to the multilateral health architecture at the World Health Summit this May.

He also underscored the importance of new regulations on the responsible use of artificial intelligence, in line with the recommendations formulated by UNESCO and the first steps taken by the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) launched in June 2020.

Work by the Feminist Action for Climate Justice Coalition, formed ahead of the Generation Equality Forum, to be held in Paris, was also presented at the meeting.