United Nations International Years, Decades, Days and Conferences
in 2007

Decades and Years -- Days and Weeks -- Conferences

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The General Assembly will mark the International Day for the Commemoration of the Two-hundredth Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade with a special commemorative meeting on 26 March 2007.  The Day marks the signing of an Act that abolished the slave trade throughout the British Empire, which helped chart the course for its abolition worldwide.

Also during 2007, the Assembly will convene a High-level Dialogue on Interreligious and Intercultural Cooperation, for the promotion of tolerance, understanding and universal respect.  During the fourth quarter of 2007, it will hold a High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development, ahead of the Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus (to be held at Doha in the second half of 2008).

The first United Nations Global Road Safety Week will be observed from 23 to 29 April 2007.  United Nations headquarters in Geneva will host a World Youth Assembly for Road Safety (23-24 April) and the Second Global Road Safety Stakeholders' Forum (25 April).  The United Nations will also host the Seventh Global Forum on Reinventing Government at its headquarters in Vienna, from 26 to 29 June.

From 30 April to 11 May 2007, the United Nations will host the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also in Vienna.  And the Assembly has encouraged all interested States and relevant bodies to participate in the Eighth Meeting of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, to be held at Jordan, from 18 to 22 November.

Beginning in 2007, the United Nations will observe 17 May as World Information Society Day, to raise awareness of the possibilities that the Internet and other information and communication technologies can bring to societies and economies.  World Diabetes Day will be observed for the first time as an official United Nations Day on 14 November 2007, and every year thereafter.  The Assembly has also called on Member States to designate a Voluntary HIV Counselling and Testing Day in 2007, with a suggested date of 1 December.

During 2008, the Assembly will hold a mid-term review of the Almaty Programme of Action, which emerged from the International Ministerial Conference of Landlocked and Transit Developing Countries and Donor Countries and International Financial and Development Institutions on Transit Transport Cooperation (held at Almaty, Kazakhstan, on 28 and 29 August 2003).

Affirming the role the potato can play in providing food security, eradicating poverty and achieving development goals, the Assembly has declared 2008 as the International Year of the Potato.  It has proclaimed 2008 as the International Year of Planet Earth, to raise awareness of important issues relating to the Earth's processes and resources; disaster prevention, reduction and mitigation; and capacity-building for the sustainable management of resources.  And, deeply concerned by insufficient progress in providing access to basic sanitation services in developing countries, the Assembly has also proclaimed 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation.

Citing the necessity of reconciliation processes for the establishment of peace in societies affected by conflicts, the Assembly has proclaimed 2009 as the International Year of Reconciliation.  Noting that natural fibres provide an important source of income for farmers and can thus can play an important role in improving food security and eradicating poverty, the Assembly has also proclaimed 2009 as the International Year of Natural Fibres.

The United Nations will observe 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity, to bring greater international attention to the continued loss of biodiversity.  And it will observe 2011 as the International Year of Forests, in recognition of the significant contribution that forests and their sustainable management can make to sustainable development, poverty eradication and the achievement of internationally agreed development goals.

Meanwhile, the international community continues to observe the Decade to Roll Back Malaria in Developing Countries, Particularly in Africa (2001-2010); the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2001-2010); the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010); the United Nations Literacy Decade:  Education for All (2003-2012); the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (2005-2014); the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014); and the International Decade for Action, "Water for Life" (2005-2015).

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