Finland pledges a million euros for the UN's emergency telecommunications

Paula Lehtomäki, Minister of Foreign Trade and Development, announced in Tampere at the International Conference on Emergency Communications (ICEC 2006) that Finland is making a new pledge of one million euros in support of the United Nations' emergency telecommunications. The pledge, to be granted from the humanitarian aid funds of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, will be targeted at the emergency telecommunications development project of OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Alongside OCHA, this telecommunications cluster of the UN includes the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children's Fund - UNICEF.

Earlier this year Finland granted two million euros in general support to OCHA and four million euros to the recently reformed Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), which is administered by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

THE ICEC 2006 conference held in Tampere on 19-20 June has as participants 150 experts from more than 30 countries.

This conference continues the Intergovernmental Conference on Emergency Telecommunications (ICET 98), which took place in Tampere in 1998, and where the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations was adopted.

Additional information:
Counsellor Timo Karmakallio, Unit for Humanitarian Assistance, Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, tel. + 358 9 1605 6342