The Diplomat
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, will be received today in Valencia by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, as part of a two-day official visit to Spain following his recent re-election for a second term as head of the organization.
During his stay in Valencia, the Ministry informed in a press release, Guterres will visit the United Nations Information and Communications Technology Center of Quart de Poblet (UNICTF-V) to commemorate, together with González Laya and the President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, the tenth anniversary of the inauguration of this center.
UNICTF-V was inaugurated on July 6, 2011 by the then United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, and the then Prince of Asturias, Don Felipe. Initially created to provide support to Peacekeeping Operations in the area of information technology and communication, the Quart de Poblet base is now a world reference in the field of information technology and communication, and is destined to gradually become a center of digital transformation for the entire United Nations, its “digital campus”.
In addition, the center has been “a pole of attraction for talent, generating skilled jobs and a network of contacts with Spanish universities and companies in the technology sector, in addition to indirect employment associated with the presence of numerous expatriate staff,” according to the Foreign Office. The base now has around 480 UN and external contract workers, all of them of a high technical level. About 60% of them are Spanish. It is expected to double the number of workers in ten years and when it is complete it will be around 1,300. In 2019, Spain ceded an additional 24,000 square meters of land, which will double the size of the base. In September 2020, construction began on a third office building with some 110 jobs for six million euros financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It will be inaugurated in April 2022.
In the afternoon. Antonio Guterres, will move to the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia to meet with young Spaniards and engage in a dialogue around the challenges and opportunities offered by today’s world and the work of the United Nations in the field of youth. This meeting is organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in collaboration with the Generalitat Valenciana and the Instituto de la Juventud INJUVE. On Friday, July 2, in Madrid, Antonio Guterres will hold meetings with the King, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Fourth Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera.
