{"id":121238,"date":"2021-12-16T17:59:04","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T00:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=121238"},"modified":"2021-12-16T17:59:04","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T00:59:04","slug":"un-assistant-secretary-general-praises-sri-lankas-vaccination-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/12\/16\/un-assistant-secretary-general-praises-sri-lankas-vaccination-program\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Assistant Secretary-General Praises Sri Lanka\u2019s Vaccination Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Prime Minister\u2019s Media Unit<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>The visiting U.N. Assistant Secretary-General\nKanni Wignaraja called on Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa last evening at\nTemple Trees and discussed a range of issues, including Sri Lanka\u2019s vaccination\nprogram. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You have a very good vaccine program,\u201d Ms.\nWignaraja said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After mention of the fact that Sri Lanka has\nalso started administering COVID vaccine booster shots, she pointed out that\nmany countries who have started the booster shots are seeing an increase in\ntourist arrivals. The Prime Minister noted that tourism is slowly starting to\npick up once again in Sri Lanka. The tourism sector has been particularly hard\nhit all across the world due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think with the vaccines, the tourists will\ncome,\u201d Ms. Wignaraja said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In further discussing Sri Lanka\u2019s\npost-COVID-19 economic recovery, Ms. Wignaraja said there are many ways that\nthe United Nations can support Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prime Minister Rajapaksa reiterated that Sri\nLanka has always worked closely with U.N. organizations and will continue to do\nso. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two delegations also discussed the need\nfor creating jobs and opportunities for young people, particularly in the\nprivate sector, and encouraging young people to seek private-sector jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ms. Wignaraja, who also serves as the\nAssistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and\nthe Regional Director of UNDP&#8217;s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, also\nbriefed the Prime Minister about the work the United Nations is supporting in\nthe areas of climate change and sustainable development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>\nOne of the major projects that the UNDP is supporting in Sri Lanka is the\nClimate Resilient Integrated Water Management Project (CRIWMP), which is a\nseven-year project aimed at strengthening the resilience of smallholder\nfarmers in Sri Lanka\u2019s Dry Zone to climate variability and extreme events,\u201d\naccording to the UNDP. A little over 73 percent of the total cost of the\nproject is being financed through a grant received from the Green Climate Fund\n(GCF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert Juhkam, the Resident Representation of\nUNDP Sri Lanka, briefed Prime Minister Rajapaksa on the work being carried out\ntowards achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in close cooperation\nwith the Sustainable Development Council of Sri Lanka (SDC). The SDC convened\nthe first national-level multi-stakeholder consultative workshop last month. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister\u2019s Media Unit The visiting U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Kanni Wignaraja called on Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa last evening at Temple Trees and discussed a range of issues, including Sri Lanka\u2019s vaccination program. You have a very good vaccine program,\u201d Ms. Wignaraja said. After mention of the fact that Sri Lanka has also started administering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}