The Diplomat
On Tuesday 22 June, Casa Árabe hosted the launch of the International Diplomacy Day (IDD), which was attended by six ambassadors from Arab countries, including the active participation of Egypt, Palestine and Tunisia.
This first edition of the International Diplomacy Day, Covid-19’s Impact on Diplomacy and the SDGs, was organised by the Diplomatic Coalition, ECO of Spain in Arabic and CINPAA, with the special support of the Diplomatic Council.
The outgoing Palestinian Ambassador to Spain, Musa Amer Odeh, highlighted the importance of reviewing lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure new avenues for cooperation on the availability and equitable access of vaccines in marginalised areas and structurally vulnerable settings, particularly poverty-stricken communities across the West Bank and Gaza.
Pedro Martínez-Avial, President of Casa Árabe, welcomed the consular representations attending the event, and assured their unconditional support for the DID initiative. Martínez-Avial was particularly interested in the medium-term objectives of the Diplomatic Coalition, which consist of defining the specific commitments of Arab embassies to scalable, community-based projects that already promote the SDGs at the local level. Short-term financial and technical support will be provided jointly by private sector partners, consular delegates and members and counterparts of the Diplomatic Coalition.
Agreeing on the vision of the need to identify synergies, the Ambassador of Egypt, Omar Ahmed Abdel Wahab Selim, and the Ambassador of Tunisia, Fatma Omrani Chargui, spoke in favour of the establishment of immediate emergency health response formulas in the populations most exposed to the pandemic, especially women and children in rural areas.
Finally, Juan Ignacio Lorente González, Director of the Diplomatic Coalition and Diplomatic Council Spain UNO Reg. and promoter of the IDD initiative, noted that “International Diplomats’ Day is an opportunity specifically designed to promote, encourage and build partnerships that facilitate the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across all sectors. The uniqueness of IDD lies in the active participation of the diplomatic world in an innovative arena, bringing together public and private entities, as well as the institutional sector.
