UNICEF official to address Mayor’s United Nations Day Dinner

September 6, Kansas City -- Ado Vaher, director of United Nations Affairs and External Relations for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), will address the people of Kansas City on global efforts to protect, nourish, nurture and educate children at the 2004 Mayor’s United Nations Day Dinner. That event, the 34^th in a series of annual observances of the founding of the United Nations hosted by five successive mayors of Kansas City, Democrat and Republican, this year will be held Thursday, Oct. 14, 7:00 p.m., at the Clarion Hotel – Sports Complex (formerly the Adams Mark hotel).

UNICEF is the world's leading advocate of child welfare with a staff of 7,200 and programs in 157 countries. UNICEF now has five major priorities: immunizing every child; getting all girls and boys into schools; reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and mitigating the impact of the disease on young people; protecting children from violence and exploitation, and introducing early childhood programs in every country. Additionally, UNICEF addresses emergency needs of children. Currently, UNICEF staff are at work in refugee camps in eastern Chad, helping the children of Sudanese families who have fled for their lives from homes in Dafur.

Mr. Vaher has held his current position with UNICEF since 1995. He directs UNICEF's relations with the U.N. and its agencies as well as with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and with various inter-governmental organizations. He also works with governments from around the world on a wide range of political, developmental and humanitarian issues related to the well-being of children.

Mr. Vaher has championed global investment in children, asserting that efforts to reduce poverty and build a more secure world can only be successful if children have an opportunity to grow into adulthood in health, peace and dignity.

Before joining UNICEF in 1991, Mr. Vaher served as a counselor in the Canadian Permanent Mission to the U.N. in New York. Before this, he worked for national and state governments in Canada and Australia. In Papua New Guinea, as deputy under secretary for planning in the Department of Transport, Mr. Vaher was involved with that country's transition to independence.

Mr. Vaher was graduated from the University of Toronto in 1967 with a degree in engineering. He later completed that university's master's program for urban and regional planning. In 1978, he was awarded a master's of science in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Mr. Vaher was born in Sweden and raised in Toronto.

For further information about the Mayor’s United Nations Day Dinner, consult the website of the United Nations Association of Greater Kansas City, www.una-kc.org.

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Contact Information

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Kansas City, MO 64131

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